Death of a Statesman

And we all know how great an idea it is to let Protean run around doing his own thing.


Dunno about you, but I vastly prefer "uses everything at his disposal including an exceptional eye for detail and mind for crime-fighting while still being just a guy" over "able to save the world with one motion but has to think about it for a while."

The official CoV guide says:



He's up to something

I'll ask again: Been there lately?

Well, what is the story there? As far as I know, only the Dark Watcher could travel between dimensions at the time he became stranded in some horrible other dimension. In the CoH comics, he simply returned. How did that happen?

To the point, he blows his stack at Statesman out of the blue: "...you left me wandering the outer dimensions and sacrificed Hero 1 to the Rikti." (ftp://ftp.cityofheroes.com/comics/topcow/comic_20.pdf p.17)

As far as I know, there has been no further elaboration or explanation. What was Statesman supposed to do that he did not? (And as far as Hero 1 goes, Hero 1 knew what he was getting into leading the Omega Team, so he was not "sacrificed" by Statesman; he volunteered.)

If you can shed some light on that, please do.

Yes

Ugh. Don't get me started on the whole "Vanguard vs Phalanx" issues of the comic. Matt and Co are pretty good game designers most of the time but as comic book writers, they pretty much sucked. "Run along and protect your little city, and leave the protection of the world to the big dogs."

Yeah.

As for the specific question, no, to my mind there has never been any good explanation for Dark Watcher's anger towards Statesman. The best I can come up with is that he expected him to move heaven and earth to find him. As illustrated in the comics, that's not an entirely unprecedented belief, given that Statesman managed to literally open a portal to Prometheus. Likewise, it stands to reason that if Statesman went to the Midnight Squad or the Dawn Patrol and asked for magical assistance that they would willingly help in any way possible.

The Watcher behaves as if Marcus knew he was still alive and chose to do nothing. Why he would believe that or even have knowledge of it is unexplained. In lieu of an explanation, I don't see any choice but to find that the Watcher is just a bit bonkers due to his time spent wandering between the dimensions.

You've got it all wrong, golden girl!

The Missile Facilities were OWNED by Arachnos but made by Council.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Reading through the thread, there have apparently been some developments in Warburg as such.






***SPOILERS****

I am willing to suspend a lot of disbelief, given a bit of reasonable rationale in a good story. In a real life scenario, some rogue agent pointing nukes at us and making threats the way Blitz did would likely get attacked by the US military and neutralized. Double if he was making threats. Off the chart if he murdered the ambassador.

The underlying story, however, does not even make much sense. Alexis was "dead 20 minutes before" our characters arrive to make the rescue attempt. And then Malaise surrenders. In order to get, what, close enough to Sister Psyche to activate the latent Aurora Borealis? This in a world where the Clockwork King can animate thousands of individual minions from Far Far Away? Close proximity does not seem to ever be needed for this psychic stuff.

At the moment, the underlying story seems very arbitrary. It makes it tough for me to accept the "sovereign nation" and "Blitz is a rogue" cards being played. Of course, I am not too happy that my hero gets to stand around unable to take action while all the murders and such take place, which does not help matters in the enjoyment area.

As if Longbow's is any better? Probably because no one wants to antagonise the homicidal, hideously scarred maniac that is Blitz. Who would probably try and nuke both Paragon AND the Isles into dust given about a micromillimeter of an excuse.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

But then you took a nuke to the knee?

Yeah, because 'Hey, we're invading to sort out the head-case!' is a sure fire way to...uh...get the head-case to unload all those missiles on everyone, not just Paragon. Because hey, he's a fruit loop!

And yeah, Clockwork King being probably third most powerful psyker in the world (1st Penny, 2nd Psyche, 3rd Kingy) probably helps. Although I do feel the Clockwork got left with a rather large gap in their explanation (why lightning bolts etc?)

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Malaise isn't really a typical psychic, though. He doesn't do the normal telepath thing. It's not hard to imagine that part of his general trick and illusion repertoire would require being nearby. He might be able to read her fears from far off, but he can't necessarily bring them to life at unlimited range. Phantom Army can only be summoned so far away from the caster, after all.

It would be cool if you could go into how you're planning on replacing him.



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I am trying to follow the rationale of the story, and it is just confusing.

In "Goldfinger," our bad guy gets supplies from a number of Mafia types. They come to his headquarters to receive payment. He tells them that they can get $1 million today, or $10 million after he pulls off his heist. They are skeptical. Goldfinger explains his plan in detail. One guy is skeptical, and he and Goldfinger step out of his headquarters office. The guy is driven to a remote location... and killed!

Meanwhile, Goldfinger does not return to his headquarters office, but rather KILLS ALL THE OTHER MAFIA TYPES.

Um, what was the point of the offer? Why not just kill them all and be done with it?

Oh yeah, Goldfinger had to explain the plan so that James Bond could HEAR IT EXPLAINED.

Maybe something like that is going on with Marshall Blitz and Alexis' murder, but for the life of me, I cannot figure what. It is ham-handed, illogical storytelling from where I sit, and it does not make sense.

Might not be needed, but it seems pretty apparent to me that Malaise (who is clearly off his rocker anyway) wanted to be near Psyche when he did his thing because he wanted to gloat about it - not to mention that he was clearly expecting not to survive (again, wanting it that way, since "artists are never appreciated until after their deaths" to paraphrase him.)

EDIT: To add to this, Malaise's obvious betrayal and subsequent capture were elements that were deemed necessary to help facilitate Psyche's breakdown, I expect. It put her on shaky ground (which was furthered by the Dirge of Chaos), and it helped to splinter the Freedom Phalanx somewhat as well. ("I never trusted that guy!")

So having him do his bit from afar, or even under the guise of acting as Psyche's sidekick- wouldn't have had quite the same effect.

Blitz is pretty much an omnicidal maniac. He's dying and wants to take the whole world with him, so he was basically duped into thinking he was starting GLORIOUS NUCLEAR WAR and whatnot, when in truth, he was mostly just a patsy being used to get Wade access to Alexis. As to why Malaise did what he did...we still don't entirely know. The villains ostensibly lost round four, so whatever the intended result was, we're not currently privy to it, at least not heroside (I haven't played the villain one yet...I should get to that).

True enough, but Malaise is powerful enough to kick SP's rear all over the place psychicly now--so much so that we need to rescue her. (was he boosted and/or possessed by someone more powerful? I dunno.) That is why I figured that with that kind of ramped-up ability, distance would not be a factor, since it isn't for the very powerful psychic folks in the game.

It is very unclear and odd.

I think it wasn't so much that Malaise became more powerful, or was being boosted by someone else, as it was the Dirge of Chaos screwing everything up. Breaking the Dirge's effects was the main reason Psyche was weak enough for Malaise to take hold in the first place. And consider that once that hold was lost, she flattened him without so much as a finger-snap.

Agreed. Remember, the Dirge made the entire city go temporarily nuts. Holding that kind of power down while resisting a powerful telepath is a significant feat.

I couldn't help but think that quite a few of my vigilante chatracters would have shot or stabbed Malaise once the dirge started up and he seemed too smug before working to stop it.

to be honest, I'm not bothered by the plotholes so much as just how delicate the plans Wade and Malaise had made. I mean it all hinged on so many unaccountable factors they were basically playing roulette. Unless Wade's plans genuinely have something that's basically controlling the odds to help him.

I mean hell, I'm sure even Golden Girl would at least knock Malaise out before taking care of the Dirge and left him unable to attack Psyche.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Got it. Vigilante killings are okay if we're positive we're doing the right thing.

Well we all know how well Batman keeps the murder rate in Gotham down by ki--

Oh wait.

I'm sorry, but if a villain continuously goes off and does terrible horrible things after you defeat and incarcerate them for a period of time, maybe it's about time you solved the problem permanently. I don't know about you but if a guy has a track record of stabbing people in the throat after 'rehabilitation' I'd have put him down by murder number five.

Pretty sure Bruce is saying there, if he started using lethal force, the murder rate would skyrocket.


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