Letter writing, wells, menders and more


Adeon Hawkwood

 

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
I don't know about you... but *I* have never met myself from the future. Just saying.
Not that you would know, eh?


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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue View Post
Not that you would know, eh?
True.



 

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Originally Posted by Ironblade View Post
I can't agree on that. The letters I got had all the i's dotted with little hearts.
That proves it; Back Alley Brawler is behind it all.


 

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
Just watched the trailer again... He states that they Pillar of Ice and Flame is an artifiact "from the end of time" and that it was chosen due to the accuracy as well as the accessibility it provides to supers of this time.
Which end of time?


 

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Originally Posted by Quasadu View Post
Re-read the post you're replying to, and the post it was replying to. The assertion was that the character's future self IS the letter writer. In which case, it's stupid to say "we haven't met" ever.
Maybe it's supposed to be your unborn son/daughter? And by pushing back "The Coming Storm", it also delays the child's birth?


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Originally Posted by Shubbie View Post
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

 

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ok, one thought i had, and i havent followed the letters too closely, but its possible. is the letter writer is mender remiel. When he gives his big monologue about the well he seems to be far more knowledgeable and mroe intense about the well than silos seems to care about. there definitly appears to be friction between the two of them, and perhaps he, upon gazing into the true nature of the well that we dont even know yet, has some major epiphany and wants to solve things radically his own way, fearing that silos's way is directionless. also, as fairly minor evidence, he does say that you may have just met him seconds ago right after the past two people you meet are silos or himself(or a off chance that its actually the minotaur, and someone in paragon studios is really dropping acid while watching david lynch movies) remiel doesnt seem to be one of the more active menders in the group before future you seemed to charge him with purpose, so it could be possible.


 

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Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague View Post
Maybe it's supposed to be your unborn son/daughter? And by pushing back "The Coming Storm", it also delays the child's birth?
That would be severely unfriendly to a large number of character concepts.


 

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
Just watched the trailer again... He states that they Pillar of Ice and Flame is an artifiact "from the end of time"
Ahh. The letter writer is The Doctor, then. Or maybe The Master, since he *was* there...


 

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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
Which end of time?
Who the heck knows... that's just what Silos said in the trailer. I would imagine from the era that he came from. That would be the farthest "end" that he would be familiar with, right?



 

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Originally Posted by Rodoan View Post
I'd like to ask if the Letter Writer couldn't be the Dream Doctor. The writing style sounds similar. He sounds like he's found a way to overthrow mortality. Although most player comments I've read suggest he's working on the Rularuu issue, perhaps he sees a bigger picture. From the paragon wiki article:
I considered this, but ultimately discarded the theory for one vital reason: The Dream Doctor has nothing to do with time travel, whereas the Letter Writer is pretty much all about time travel. The Dream Doctor is a Midnighter, or was one, anyway, and we know that the Midnight Club had no capacity for time travel until the Letter Writer gave them the crystal of ice and flame, and even then that can only go to Cimerora.

Also, I went about trying to figure out if this could be a Midnighter, and I don't believe it is as the writer refers to the Midnight Club as "them" and not "us." It's not conclusive evidence, obviously, but he just doesn't sound like he's from the Midnight Club.


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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague View Post
Maybe it's supposed to be your unborn son/daughter? And by pushing back "The Coming Storm", it also delays the child's birth?
It's exactly this kind of assumptions about a character's true nature that makes it practically impossible for the Letter Writer to be us. Easy examples: Slime Girl is a construct of sentient slime that has no internal organs or a reproductive system. She's an amorphous mass of jelly. 13 is a robot. It does not have a reproductive system and does not age. Bodyshop is a mass of sentient cancerous tissue given intelligence through a cybernetic helmet. It has no organs at all, and any clump cut off from it has no intelligence. The Herald of Light is a ghost who possesses a suit of medieval armour. He cannot reproduce.

The game permits and supports a staggering array of characters of all types of concepts and backgrounds. To try and assume what our characters are made from (and worse, assume they're human) would be a rookie mistake that I don't expect a veteran development team of seven years to commit. I keep hoping that they've learned their lesson from the HORRIBLE Origin of Powers storyline and aren't inclined to just up and say "Hey, you sentient slab of granite! In the future, you married Mount Rushmore and had yourself a little of pebbles!" I mean, I'd laugh my *** off if they did (and promptly crucify the writers), but it's absurd to thing that, since when we DO meet the Letter Writer... What will he look like? Wouldn't the son of an evil scoop of ice cream be an evil scoop of ice cream, too?

*edit*
FFS... I should not have said that, because I suddenly found use for Ice Armour and Ice Melee... Curse my random brain!


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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by Justice Blues View Post
How about it being yourself? You become an Incarnate and live a very long time, going through the Coming Storm by teaming with an older you and the various people he has chosen, so when you get really old, you go back and write the letters to set yourself up to go along with yourself when you go back in time to gather the various folks like Protean and yourself.
or better yet: YOU ARE NEMESIS!!!

rofl


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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

 

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I must amend my statement earlier regarding the Issue 11 trailer... Mender Silos states that the pillar is "an artifact from the end of the universe itself" NOT what I stated earlier.



 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I considered this, but ultimately discarded the theory for one vital reason: The Dream Doctor has nothing to do with time travel, whereas the Letter Writer is pretty much all about time travel.
The Issue 11 video that you mentioned earlier talks of 11 means by which time travel is possible. Is it not possible that magic could be one of those methods? Or a mystical artifact? Both of which are things Midnighters just might have access to. Also, isn't the Dream Doctor connected to Rularuu in some way? One would think that would grant him access to a rather large amount of powers, eh?

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The Dream Doctor is a Midnighter, or was one, anyway, and we know that the Midnight Club had no capacity for time travel until the Letter Writer gave them the crystal of ice and flame, and even then that can only go to Cimerora.
We have no way of knowing that that is the ONLY place it CAN go, merely that it is the only place it goes NOW. Likewise, I don't know that it has been stated definitively that the Midnighters had zero access to time travel before they received their Aspect of the Pillar.

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Also, I went about trying to figure out if this could be a Midnighter, and I don't believe it is as the writer refers to the Midnight Club as "them" and not "us." It's not conclusive evidence, obviously, but he just doesn't sound like he's from the Midnight Club.
You said yourself in the previous paragraph that he might no longer be a Midnighter (when you said "or was one"). As such, if he no longer considers himself a part of the Midnighters, he would have no reason to use inclusive pronouns like 'we' or 'us.'

I am not making the case that the Dream Doctor IS the letter writer, merely sparring with your reasoning a bit so that we can all come to a proper conclusion.



 

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
The Issue 11 video that you mentioned earlier talks of 11 means by which time travel is possible. Is it not possible that magic could be one of those methods? Or a mystical artifact? Both of which are things Midnighters just might have access to. Also, isn't the Dream Doctor connected to Rularuu in some way? One would think that would grant him access to a rather large amount of powers, eh?

Likewise, I don't know that it has been stated definitively that the Midnighters had zero access to time travel before they received their Aspect of the Pillar.
The thing is, if magic is how the Letter Writer is travelling through time, then someone dropped the ball HARD on setting this up, since at no point in the game does unambiguous magic travel through time. We see magic travel across dimensions in the shape of the Oranbegan "tower to the heavens," but not across time. The only time travellers aside from Ourobors that I know of are Arachnons, and they're using a "Stargate."

If the Midnighters' did have access to time travel in some way, then the game should have set this up. I'm not saying it's not possible, just that it would be completely out of left field and not very good storytelling. This is more of a meta argument, but still.

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
We have no way of knowing that that is the ONLY place it CAN go, merely that it is the only place it goes NOW.
Here's a question I didn't want to ask - WHY are the Midnighters sending us to Cimerora? I know Montague Castanella's writing is some of the worst, most confusing, least professional in the game and it's very possible I just misunderstood, but I was under the impression that they have a Crystal which goes to Cimerora. Period. The Letter Writer specifically gave them the crystal so that they could go to Cimerora and provide enough temporal interference to hide his own movements from Ouroboros. If they could just wave a wand at the thing and instead go check out what killed the dinosaurs, that might put a kink in his plan.

Of course, Montague is said to be aware of changes to the timeline as they happen, but just what the devil this means is anyone's guess since pretty much everything about the Midnighters that isn't Mercedes Sheldon is a right mess of bad writing and leaps of logic.

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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
You said yourself in the previous paragraph that he might no longer be a Midnighter (when you said "or was one"). As such, if he no longer considers himself a part of the Midnighters, he would have no reason to use inclusive pronouns like 'we' or 'us.'
I kind of expected that essentially the "Darryn Wayde" argument would pop up at some point - the former Midnighter who is no longer a Midnighter. I can't really claim one way or the other, but what reason would the Dream Doctor have to leave the Midnight Club? I don't remember much of his story, but I recall him being forgotten, so if he still exists, why not get touch with them and ask for their help. Maybe even get Montague's help in seeing changes in the timeline. Why go around recruiting Protean and fake Ajax? If it does end up being the Dream Doctor, it will be kind of out of left field.

---

I guess in any good mystery, we really shouldn't have a good guess as to who the mystery person will end up being, and even better when it's the one we didn't think to question. But to bring up a character who was never in the game to begin with just seems like an *** pull, if you'll pardon my English. Yes, it might make sense for the Letter Writer to be the Dream Doctor if we think about it hard enough. It might also make sense for him to be mayor Spanky Rabinowitz and I'm sure we can make a case for that, as well. But if the person is not well established, then the reveal just stumbles into "And the killer is... Wait, who's that?"


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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
But if the person is not well established, then the reveal just stumbles into "And the killer is... Wait, who's that?"
Got to agree with you here! I would hate for them to pull a bad Scooby Doo ending on this arc that has lasted for literally YEARS of real time.



 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
The Letter Writer specifically gave them the crystal
Again, I have to ask where you're getting the info that the LW gave the Midnighters their crystal. The only place I've seen it mentioned is the ITF letter, which implies that's what happened, but doesn't actually state it. It also uses the kind of phrasing I associate with someone who is deliberately trying to get you to think something is true, while maintaining the ability to say "I never said that, you just assumed it."

Re: The Dream Doctor - The LW's writing has an amoral tone to it that makes me think it's not the the Dream Doctor. Not exactly a hard fact, but that's my gut feeling.


"Trust me, it worked in the Simpsons." - Calash

 

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Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
The style of the writing is also very un-feminine - women don't write in that way
Like you're some kind of expert on this. Right.

Anyways, running theory I've been hearing has been Lady Grey for a very long time.


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I'm placing my bet on the LW being:

The Center

1) He's the leader of a major organization (the council) but his goals are never made clear.

2) He's been gathering super-powered individuals (all the former 5th Column AVs), but has yet to really use them for any big plans.

3) He's willing to use heroes to keep his own underlings in check. In a hero alignment mission he tips you off to Requiems plans to plant a dark seed and then thanks you at the end (over the radio) for helping out. His dialogue in this bit has a similar feel to the LW's style.

4) We don't know what his powers are, just that they are non-combat (according to Viridian.) Maybe he's a time traveler.

5) He's a hard man to see. His only (physical) appearance in game is the Viridian arc.

6) Yes, I know the Mender Lazarus arc is a strong argument against it being the Center, but there are equally good arguments against the other contenders.


As a side note, I don't think we can rule out a female writer. Dean McArthur says a man gave him the letter, but there's no reason to think that the delivery wasn't made by an underling. This make's my second choice a possibility: Miss Francine. You think she's just gathering all those Freaks together for reading lessons?


_________
@Inquisitor

 

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It's FLOWER KNIGHT.


 

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Originally Posted by Flarstux View Post
It's FLOWER KNIGHT.
I'll one up you: Fusionette from the end of the universe.

EDIT: Or heck, here and now Fusionette.


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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
Got to agree with you here! I would hate for them to pull a bad Scooby Doo ending on this arc that has lasted for literally YEARS of real time.
Holy smokes! The Letter writer! It's ... Old Man Jenkins!


PS: Yay on my 500th post! Woot!


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I've always assumed it's a character who hasn't appeared yet, who will be introduced in the "game finale" arc. With the game going free to play and thus server shutdown becoming somewhat less likely, I don't know what to think.

One possibility I've considered all along is that the writing team hasn't decided on who the writer is yet, though the more letters get tossed around, the less likely that seems.

Additional ideas I've considered for the writer's identity include Prometheus (the ego is certainly there) and Nemesis-from-the-past (before he became a disembodied brain). Neither seems all that likely, though.


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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
The thing is, if magic is how the Letter Writer is travelling through time, then someone dropped the ball HARD on setting this up, since at no point in the game does unambiguous magic travel through time. We see magic travel across dimensions in the shape of the Oranbegan "tower to the heavens," but not across time. The only time travellers aside from Ourobors that I know of are Arachnons, and they're using a "Stargate."

If the Midnighters' did have access to time travel in some way, then the game should have set this up. I'm not saying it's not possible, just that it would be completely out of left field and not very good storytelling. This is more of a meta argument, but still.
The thing is, If I recall correctly isn't it said somewhere in Ouroboros or by the LW himself that there are 11 different methods of time travel? If there are that many I am willing to be atleast one is magical in nature.


 

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Count me as someone who thinks its the Dream Doctor. Mostly because of this little snippet that you can find while doing the Archivist Badge in the Midnight club.

Quote:
Hopefully, when you read this, my name is not forgotten. I don't know why that's so important to me. I guess after all I've seen, a part of me is still human. I wonder if the same can be said for my counterpart, Rularuu.
As I used the blade, I shaved off a piece of myself. I am not the same man anymore. I still work among you - looking for answers. But I've also begun searching in the dreamspace for a way to protect you, and the rest of the world, from a fate that grows closer with each passing day. Something is coming and I must find out what it is before it's too late.
I have never been afraid to ask for help. If you remember anything about me, please remember that. But this...this is something I must do on my own. I'm going to try and save the world... again. But by all means, don't let that stop you from trying to save it first.
-The Dream Doctor
<Emphasis Mine>

This appears to be written after the defeat of Rularuu, so it seems reasonably plausible that he could have became aware of The Coming Storm and set out to try and stop it. Given that we really know nothing about the Dreamscape its also plausable that through it he could time travel as well as visit alternate dimensions. Both things that are hinted the LW can do.


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