Letter writing, wells, menders and more
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-08-15 06:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I think it goes without saying that LW can't be trusted either. Especially if he's becoming overt instead of covert. I want to know what HIS agenda is. Even if he really is some alternate version of myself. My future self theoretically already judged things screwed up enough in the future that he sent Ramiel back to re-jigger things. If LW is me, then he automatically is untrustworthy because he's behind the times.
The fact is that we're having this discussion because there's no way to verify anybody's stories from a game mechanics perspective. I tend to operate on the assumption that LW is telling the truth insomuch as what he says about the menders is all stuff that can be verified. Twilight's Son might hem and haw about his past, but Tess wouldn't bother with that; she'd brag about her past glory even if she was secretive about the particulars of what led her to become a Mender and subject herself to semi-permanent quantum scaline. I have the impression that Lazarus considers himself your good buddy and would be amenable to opening up about himself given the right persuasion.
From a story perspective, it ought to be possible to approach the Menders and hear their sides of the story. LW even says that they know he exists, so if you are willing to take the risk of being associated with LW, you could take the approach of being completely open about the letters and seeing what truth or lies you learn from that strategy.
Whether his agenda is intrinsically better than Silos' agenda is an open question. I'd rather be pursuing MY agenda, so for the moment I do Silos' bidding but I reserve judgement on whether either of them is worth trusting.
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Leaving aside the logistics of guessing exactly WHAT I am to make a canon character correspond to that, the Letter Writer being "me" is just about the worst possible outcome I can imagine. Consider the alternate versions of ourselves that we've seen:|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I think it goes without saying that LW can't be trusted either. Especially if he's becoming overt instead of covert. I want to know what HIS agenda is. Even if he really is some alternate version of myself. My future self theoretically already judged things screwed up enough in the future that he sent Ramiel back to re-jigger things. If LW is me, then he automatically is untrustworthy because he's behind the times.
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Alternate dimension me in the dead ghost world where I became powerful and evil and killed everybody, then the ghosts killed me and proceeded to live in eternal undead torment for all times. Yikes!
Future me who fought with Recluse for control over Arachnos, in the process instigating and fighting many, many wars, eventually killing everyone in the world and leaving behind an undead graveyard of angry ghosts. Yikes!
Alternate dimension me who is kind of good but very incompetent and weaker than me in every aspect, and eventually dies via having a bridge fall on him. Ugh...
I've yet to see an alternate version of my character who wasn't either a complete dick or completely ineffectual. If the Letter Writer really is a future version of my character, then we are all SOL.
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| From a story perspective, it ought to be possible to approach the Menders and hear their sides of the story. LW even says that they know he exists, so if you are willing to take the risk of being associated with LW, you could take the approach of being completely open about the letters and seeing what truth or lies you learn from that strategy. |
We know now that Silos is Nemesis. Given these circumstances, I would assume him to be a smart guy. I would assume him to be clever enough to tell that if I'm showing him a letter that says "Do not show to Mender Silos," then I probably don't believe the letter and I'm probably on his side anyway. Now, granted, I get that the game couldn't do that in I11, and probably can't even to this day. But it's one thing to accept a simple limitation of the game system. It's quite another to swallow the Letter Writer's lies about the dangers of bringing this up with Ourobors.
Now, OK, I get that if I went up to Lazarus and told him to his face that I thought he was a deranged lunatic who performs crazy experiments and will one day doom us all, he might be upset. I get that if I went up to Twilight's Son and told him I thought he was responsible for the monstrous tragedy that befell his entire race, he may be justifiably angry. But if I went up to either of them and told them "Hey, I found a letter of lies about you. Will it help if I told you where and when I found it?" are they seriously going to go all "Traitor!" on me? Seriously?
I bring up doubting the Letter Writer because we really aren't given an option to do otherwise. The Letter Writer instructs us to not question Ourobors and we don't, because the game gives us no option to do so. This may be why I choose to distrust him so completely, but when the game forces me to mistrust NPCs that are actively helping me and trust some random person who writes intentionally cryptic letters... I distrust the latter. If anything, I expect the Letter Writer to turn out to be helping the Coming Storm, hence I'd guess it might be whoever may gain from such an event. Like the Hamidon or even someone from Praetoria.
Or why not Ubelmann the Unknown?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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There is also the one from the villain morality mission who hung out with Frostfire, drank from the Well, became a god, and destroyed everything. I don't blame you for forgetting that one. Not only is it massive character hijacking just to show off the fancy new doppelganger options, the whole mission is buggy and terribly designed and doesn't even make any sense unless you ignore about 90% of what's going on.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I've yet to see an alternate version of my character who wasn't either a complete dick or completely ineffectual. If the Letter Writer really is a future version of my character, then we are all SOL.
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Note that I fully expect the letter writer to be future me. The devs seem to love writing our characters for us lately.
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Or why not Ubelmann the Unknown?
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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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The same way villains break into the Midnighters club to steal artifacts. He used magic. Then hitched a ride with the Midnighters crystal. And before you go all cause and effect on me...|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Because he's dying from time cancer. In my older characters' personal storylines, he's dead by now. I'd totally buy Requiem though. How did Requiem get to Cimerora anyway?
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People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big bowl of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff.
I would like to believe that one of the 11 modes of time travel is a blue police box.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
I'm most certainly with Sam on this one. If I had to choose a side, right now, I'd go with Melord Nemilos. He has power, technology, and is actually slowing the Storm down.
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This quote from the Hro'Dtohz file is, I believe, the only in game reference to the Battalion:|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Battalion have been described as a threat even greater than Tyrant and the loyalists - and since the new Underground Trial introduces the first level shifted enemies - 54+1 Goliath War Walkers, it's quite possible the Battalion could be entirely level shifted, requiring the Incarnate system powers to defeat them - so that old news might still be quite up-to-date, but tweaked slightly
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| After the initial wars to unify the planet thousands of years ago, the Lineage of War was very small, only rising to prominence during a very few infrequent civil wars and insurrections. Their last big operation was against an alien force called the Battalion about 100 years ago. Since then, their power had been tapering off to its normal ceremonial levels until the start of the war with Earth. |
The following quote is from B'Nadek (aka Ben Decker):
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| They thought Change: Improvement. They all undergo: Change during Gestation/Exo-womb. They think it's a way to lift a man: up, just like some aliens did to them thousands of years ago. |
PS The last three words in the full quote from B'Nadek are 'Cage a Man.' That is the title of the first novel in F.M. Busby's series about the Demu, a race of aliens who surgically alter other intelligent races to appear more Demu-like on the grounds that only Demu are truly intelligent.The alterations are intended as a benevolent act (though Humans and others see things differently.)
_________
@Inquisitor
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Note that the Rikti being Rikti-fied thousands of years ago, and fighting the Battalion a hundred or so years ago, doesn't *necessarily* mean the Battalion's not responsible for the chnage. They could have made the change, left, and come back, at which point the Rikti fought them off. I don't personally think that's the case, but nothing we know disproves it.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid
This quote from the Hro'Dtohz file is, I believe, the only in game reference to the Battalion:
The Lineage of War reducing in size since fighting the Battalion is a strong indicator that the Rikti won that conflict. This would make the Battalion not quite so tough as some comments have suggested. The following quote is from B'Nadek (aka Ben Decker): If both these quotes are correct (and it's possible they aren't given that the Hro'Dtohz file is based on Vanguard intelligence and B'Nadek may not be overly well informed on Rikti history) then the Rikti change occurred thousands of years before the Battalion fighting. PS The last three words in the full quote from B'Nadek are 'Cage a Man.' That is the title of the first novel in F.M. Busby's series about the Demu, a race of aliens who surgically alter other intelligent races to appear more Demu-like on the grounds that only Demu are truly intelligent.The alterations are intended as a benevolent act (though Humans and others see things differently.) |
As far as the Rikti victory proving that the Battalion aren't that tough, we have precedents for different power levels fro the same entity in different dimensions (Primal v Praet Hami being the best example). The Rikti also have a collective consciousness, which could provide a pretty big advantage in a war.
"Trust me, it worked in the Simpsons." - Calash
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The Well isn't the only source of vast power in the multiverse - the Battalion might have found another one after they failed to conquer the Rikti |
Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid
The Lineage of War reducing in size since fighting the Battalion is a strong indicator that the Rikti won that conflict. This would make the Battalion not quite so tough as some comments have suggested.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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For example, Kheldians.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Well isn't the only source of vast power in the multiverse - the Battalion might have found another one after they failed to conquer the Rikti
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Still not seeing it. That old article is right; the first minion of the Battalion I see better do a /laugh emote the first time I hit him with an attack. These guys are the Storm, baby! They better be all about OHKO's or special mechanics.
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I largely don't remember this Morality mission because I haven't done it. With the hamfisted way in which morality in City of Heroes is being handled, with us fluctuating between a few states of grotesquely caricature morality that isn't in-character for pretty much anyone that I can think of, I simply gave up on trying to run these things and make them relevant to my stories. It's the same problem as with Praetoria - when you sit down to write morality or loyalty by itself and then wrap a story around it, it comes off like a parody. Morality needs to exist as part of self-contained stories, rather than being the central theme that a story is built after.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
There is also the one from the villain morality mission who hung out with Frostfire, drank from the Well, became a god, and destroyed everything. I don't blame you for forgetting that one. Not only is it massive character hijacking just to show off the fancy new doppelganger options, the whole mission is buggy and terribly designed and doesn't even make any sense unless you ignore about 90% of what's going on.
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In this regard, I actually think the Letter Writer angle is pretty good. This is a story first and foremost and a moral choice only secondarily. Yes, we may end up having to make a choice in the end, but it won't be a mission specifically designed to present a tough moral choice and employing deus ex machina liberally to do so.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Note that I fully expect the letter writer to be future me. The devs seem to love writing our characters for us lately.
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It's writing the story of my character's past and present that bugs the hell out of me.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Because he's dying from time cancer. In my older characters' personal storylines, he's dead by now. I'd totally buy Requiem though. How did Requiem get to Cimerora anyway?
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Or how about this interpretation: Ubelmann is dying, but he still has a few years to live. Who's to say that he can't put this all together in the last few years of his life? With time travel, he could have written all of his letters and done all of his deeds within a matter of days or weeks. In fact, he'd have a reason to abuse time travel if he's living on borrowed time.
Of course, Ubelmann doesn't really have much to do with aliens and the apocalypse and building large-scale conspiracies. On the other hand, he is a smooth-talking, smart intelligence officer who manages to outwit us and evade us at every turn in the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, he is always nice to his prisoners and the only reason we manage to foil him is because Requiem sells him out.
Requiem himself is a good guess, as well, based primarily on the letter you find in the Lazarus TF shortly before fighting Requiem and his two lieutenants. It says something to the effect of "I underestimated you. It is a mistake I have made a point to never repeat again." Granted, this could just mean that the Letter Writer didn't think I'd survive the fight, but when I did, he decided he wanted me on his side. It could also mean that Requiem arranged events such that I'd try to stop him and fail for... Some reason, but when I did manage to break his face, he had to reshuffle his plans right fast, something he wouldn't want to do again.
Requiem is also the only person in the game who has access to time travel by unexplained means. All other time travellers give us a reason for why they're travelling and show us what they travel by. Holsten uses a machine, Ubelmann uses a machine, Ouroboros use crystals of ice and flame and so on. So how does Requiem travel? WHY does he travel? We don't know. So it's at least a possibility. I mean, he does have a history of surrounding himself with powerful meta-humans and playing chess master in keeping their loyalty.
In the original 5th Column Ubelmann the Unknown, Requiem sells Ubelmann out not to spite his boss (because he doesn't have a boss), but rather because if the Nazi won WW2, there'd be no place for his 5th Column and he wouldn't have the power he does. We've seen that he's a manipulative *******, we've seen he's a shrewd leader, we've seen he's capable of orchestrating colossal events using time travel and we know he has an agenda. He's a good candidate.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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While anagrams are by far not uncommon... that one seems a bit too far. But, it is as likely as anything.
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I just want to put forward my favourite theory, or whatever you might want to call it.
Take "Darrin Wade", turn the W upside down to become an M, and now rearrange the letters. "Dr in a dreaM" - the Dream Doctor. |
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When you put it that way, he does sound like a good candidate. Even down to the hiding in plain sight, since that's what the Fifth Column does. I could see Requiem orchestrating the whole Cimerora project as a diversion from his true project. And, hey, if Cimerora actually works, so much the better.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
In the original 5th Column Ubelmann the Unknown, Requiem sells Ubelmann out not to spite his boss (because he doesn't have a boss), but rather because if the Nazi won WW2, there'd be no place for his 5th Column and he wouldn't have the power he does. We've seen that he's a manipulative *******, we've seen he's a shrewd leader, we've seen he's capable of orchestrating colossal events using time travel and we know he has an agenda. He's a good candidate.
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I am going to cast my vote for "Echo of you"
The Echos really interested me in that arc. In the first mission something reached out and took memories from your mind and turned them into apportions that you faced in a memory of your future self. Later on you face the same creatures in the past, yet they have full knowledge of you and the previous encounter.
There is some serious power there, or at least vast time travel capabilities to create such a timeline out of your actions.
It also makes me wonder if the Echos are related to the Reflections from the Shadow Shard, meaning that the coming storm could have something to do with Uuralur
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Alternate reality versions of you clearly follow the game's established rules regarding alternate reality versions of people; they are as similar to or different from the original as the plot demands. They're no more "you" than Neuron is Synapse. That doesn't make it good storytelling, but at least it's consistent.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Sadly, I cannot disagree with you here. With all the storylines telling me what the story of my character actually is, ascribing motivations and desires to my character and generally defining how we act and behave... Yeah, I can actually buy that. Though, in the story's defence, I don't actually have a problem with how we come out in the future or in an alternate reality. Sure, it's character hijacking, but it's also something that can be changed now that I know the dangers. It's like the authors telling me "THIS is what could happen if you're not careful!" to which I can reply "OK, then I will be careful and it won't happen."
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Future you on the other hand...tell me, would you buy future Fusionette as the letter writer? Would you buy future Mako? There's a difference between character development due to unknown circumstances and a total personality rewrite. What about stupid characters? Or nihilistic villains?
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| Requiem is also the only person in the game who has access to time travel by unexplained means. All other time travellers give us a reason for why they're travelling and show us what they travel by. Holsten uses a machine, Ubelmann uses a machine, Ouroboros use crystals of ice and flame and so on. So how does Requiem travel? WHY does he travel? |
I'm still incredibly disappointed that the opportunity to expand the Path of the Dark storyline with Cimerora was wasted in favor of some Origin of Power/alternate Statesman/time-**** crap.
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| In the original 5th Column Ubelmann the Unknown, Requiem sells Ubelmann out not to spite his boss (because he doesn't have a boss), but rather because if the Nazi won WW2, there'd be no place for his 5th Column and he wouldn't have the power he does. We've seen that he's a manipulative *******, we've seen he's a shrewd leader, we've seen he's capable of orchestrating colossal events using time travel and we know he has an agenda. He's a good candidate. |
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Well reading the thread I've got a few wild ideas with kheldians. That maybe Silos used the kheldians himself to prolong his life and not the Battalion. Or that Twilight's Son's host is Ubelmann the Unknown and Twilight's Son healed him. Then later they were separated and Ulbelmann is the letter writer trying to change things. Possibly Requiem was trying to kickstart the path of the dark to make more khelds to power whatever Battalion or Silos and sell out the Nictus/khelds himself. All this talk of our chars being the letter writer maybe Twilight's Son is future me as Hero Alpha(joking of course). Like I said, just some random ideas.
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You might recall that the two times that Primal Earth stopped the Rikti from destroying the planet, we had to proactively prevent the Rikti's main battle forces from coming into the fight. Primal Earth doesn't actually have the power to destroy the Rikti military machine. EDIT: Then again, this at most puts us on the same level as the Battalion; however, I don't see anyone on Earth using planet-devouring, meteor-born space goo as scouts.* There's a good chance the Battalion is still quite powerful.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid
The Lineage of War reducing in size since fighting the Battalion is a strong indicator that the Rikti won that conflict. This would make the Battalion not quite so tough as some comments have suggested.
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This actually brings up a couple of potential plot threads. Are we actually going to try and get the Rikti to help Primal Earth? This would be very difficult considering that Hro'Dtohz is still trying to justify tooth and nail that humanity should be destroyed and denying all evidence of a dupe by Nemesis.
In fact, if the Rikti find out that the Battalion is coming after something on Earth, it might give the Rikti all the reason they need to help defend Earth...or blow it up completely.
*Except Dr. Aeon.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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I may have missed something but what is the evidence that the Battalion and Shiva are related?
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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
You might recall that the two times that Primal Earth stopped the Rikti from destroying the planet, we had to proactively prevent the Rikti's main battle forces from coming into the fight. Primal Earth doesn't actually have the power to destroy the Rikti military machine. EDIT: Then again, this at most puts us on the same level as the Battalion; however, I don't see anyone on Earth using planet-devouring, meteor-born space goo as scouts.* There's a good chance the Battalion is still quite powerful.
*Except Dr. Aeon. |
_________
@Inquisitor
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Oh, right, the Echos, I completely forgot about them. Yes, for what they are (transparent rehashes of old models), the Echos are awesome. Time travel stories have the tendency to have events happen out of order as you AND your enemies travel through time and meet in a jumbled order, but the Echos appear to exist outside of time entirely, as time for them runs exactly as time for us does. They remember what they did in my dream of the future, and they reference that in my trip into the past. If I later on met them in the present, I'm sure it will be as much "later" for them as for me.|
Originally Posted by Calash
The Echos really interested me in that arc. In the first mission something reached out and took memories from your mind and turned them into apportions that you faced in a memory of your future self. Later on you face the same creatures in the past, yet they have full knowledge of you and the previous encounter. There is some serious power there, or at least vast time travel capabilities to create such a timeline out of your actions.
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They actually remind me of the Elder God from Soul Reaver - no matter what time period you're in and who you're supposed to have met, the Elder God always picks up conversations exactly where he left off in the futurepast. He exists, in a sense, outside of time and can see all times simultaneously. A lot like Diviner Maros, as a point of fact.
Actually, have we considered Maros for the part? No... No, I suppose he wouldn't work. Maros seems to see all of time between his original experiment and the next "rising of the tower," yet the Letter Writer's letters seem confused as to exactly WHEN you find them. Wouldn't he technically know when you found which letter from what you tell him when you finally meet if it were really him? And would the next rising of the tower play some role in the Coming Storm?
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Originally Posted by Calash
It also makes me wonder if the Echos are related to the Reflections from the Shadow Shard, meaning that the coming storm could have something to do with Uuralur
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Future you on the other hand...tell me, would you buy future Fusionette as the letter writer? Would you buy future Mako? There's a difference between character development due to unknown circumstances and a total personality rewrite. What about stupid characters? Or nihilistic villains?
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
If I was writing the story, I'd have him just rebuild Ubelmann's time machine. It would make sense and wouldn't require any convoluted plot contrivances.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I'm still incredibly disappointed that the opportunity to expand the Path of the Dark storyline with Cimerora was wasted in favor of some Origin of Power/alternate Statesman/time-**** crap.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I do like the idea of Requiem being the letter writer. It was my original guess, actually, because the first thing I thought of when we started getting the letters was the souvenir from the Ubelmann the Unknown arc.
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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
You might recall that the two times that Primal Earth stopped the Rikti from destroying the planet, we had to proactively prevent the Rikti's main battle forces from coming into the fight. Primal Earth doesn't actually have the power to destroy the Rikti military machine.
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Yes, the Rikti beat back the Battalion, but the Rikti could nuke us into a greasy spot if they could actually cross over to do so. Their having beaten such a monstrous threat doesn't really help us all that much since we couldn't even come close to beating them. The most we can do is keep their portals closed.
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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
This actually brings up a couple of potential plot threads. Are we actually going to try and get the Rikti to help Primal Earth? This would be very difficult considering that Hro'Dtohz is still trying to justify tooth and nail that humanity should be destroyed and denying all evidence of a dupe by Nemesis.
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I've always wanted to visit the Rikti homeworld, and involving the seemingly scary dogmatic aliens as our allies has always been one of my favourite plot points. I'd love to see that happen.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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I think the letter writer is me. Well not me for you. You for you and me for me.
That make any sense?
Enjoy your day please.
Speaking of Requium, we never did find out what was behind that version of him causing all that dimensional chaos in 'To Save a Thousand Worlds'. Or even if it was actually him doing it.
He says in one mission
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He admits glorying in it, but not actually causing it.| You believe me responsible for the destruction that has coursed through the multiverse. I must admit, I glory in it. You will not find me, little hero. |
and from the end of the souvenir
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| You took the flame to Werewolf World and, as predicted, Requiem was drawn to it. You defeated him, and escaped from Werewolf World just before the entire dimension was torn from the fabric of the multiverse. It seemed that Requiem's dimensional tampering had caught up with him. And yet you had to wonder: how had Requiem caused all this chaos? Perhaps he had powers you had never imagined. Or perhaps there was someone else in the shadows, who had not yet been brought into light. |
Always remember, we were Heroes.
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Y'know, it was really easy to find before when I wasn't really looking for that particular thread...but from what I recall on the open beta forums, Big Blue in Ouroboros spills the beans after you beat the Underground Trial.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid
I may have missed something but what is the evidence that the Battalion and Shiva are related?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Even Praetorian Earth, which is supposed to be far more technologically advanced than Primal Earth, still isn't anywhere near the level of the Rikti, with Neuron being speechless at the greatness of a single Rikti bomb.
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61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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Is it possible that the Echos and the Reflections are one and the same... and the reason that the Reflections seem tortured is because they have been somehow cut off from that greater mind/timelessness that you speak of?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I doubt it. The Shadow Shard reflections are separate creatures with their own consciences, confused as they may be. They say things like "I'm so cold." and "I don't remember something... What can't I remember?!?" They're clearly tortured, confused souls. The Echos, by contrast, seem like vessels of a single mind, sort of like how Nemesis can speak through multiple Fakes at the same time. I'm not making Nemesis allegations, just saying they're probably not related unless the Shadow Shard Reflections get retconned.
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Now why that would be, I am unsure... it could be anything from the way Rularuu was imprisoned, to some odd eccentricity of how time flows (or doesn't) in the Shard... but I should think they could be related. (And in fact, SHOULD be from a game mechanics perspective. One should only use unique effects like that for things that use the same concept/idea. It would be like if Fire Blast was used by an enemy group and did Cold Dmg instead... it should look different to describe a different effect.)
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To be honest... This would be completely awesome I've always wanted to visit the Rikti homeworld, and involving the seemingly scary dogmatic aliens as our allies has always been one of my favourite plot points. I'd love to see that happen.
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Sometimes I wish I knew less about Ouroboros than I do.
Many moons ago, just before Ouroboros were about to be introduced, I overheard some very interesting information about them while at a player meet from someone who shall remain nameless. But it was about as close to an official source as I could get. What I heard though, sounded absolutely awesome which is why I’ve been looking forward to this storyline for so long.
*SPOILERS INBOUND*
From what I was told, Nemesis is not responsible for the Battalion invading but he is responsible for crippling humanity just when it needed to be at its strongest. Because he began the dimension jumping (yes, he did supply all that Superadine) and then caused the Rikti war, he left the world decimated and lacking in sufficient metahumans to be able to repel the Battalion’s invasion forces. With humanity crippled, he laid elaborate plans to continually clone himself until a time when time travel was invented. He could then utilise that to travel back to now and make sure we were prepared or even stop the invasion from happening altogether. This involved setting up Ouroboros and recruiting his fellow Menders, even if they did come from very questionable sources (I’m looking directly at Mender Tesseract here, watch her, she’s dangerous).
Now what I don’t know is how this now fits in with the Incarnate and Praetorian content. To me, they feel shoehorned in, as if the set up of Ouroboros fed directly into the endgame of fighting the Battalion but then Going Rogue happened and we took a diversion into Goatee Paragon. What I knew back then also used the Invention system to fight the Battalion, an idea that seems to have crashed and burnt so I’d imagine the story has been reworked too.
As for who the Letter Writer is, I think it’s likely to have changed a number of times over the past ten issues depending on how the story was being written at the time and who was writing it. If I had to hedge a guess, I’d go for the Dream Doctor simply because it seems to fit his style. Plus there is a link between time/memory/psychic plane that works for me. Unfortunately, given how canon has been treated recently, I’m expecting it to be something lame like Nemesis (yet again) or even worse, ourselves from the future. I’d love it to be something incredibly left field, such as Emperor Cole or Lord Recluse or even the Hamidon himself but I’m not holding out much hope. Likewise with travelling to the Rikti homeworld, even though it would be exceptionally cool.
Despite the facepalm worthy moments we’ve had with the plot so far (I really, really hate having my character written for me), I’m looking forward to seeing it resolved, even if it does mean trusting Tesseract given that she’s *MMmmmmppph!!!* (Sounds of hand clamped over mouth and struggling)
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Actually, found mention of it
From the November 2005 PC Gamer:
Of course, that is incredibly ancient news and no doubt has changed (especially since it was based on the scrapped skills system).
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork