*spoilers* The Freedom Phalanx are incompetent!

Thats a lot of built up rage right there

Deep breaths sam! Deep breaths!

Sister Psyche: "$Character, I'm going to absorb the Dirge of Chaos now, but I need you to incapacitate Malaise for me first."

Aurora Borealis gives you a [Tranq Dart].

Aurora Borealis: "Use this to put him under. It's got a triple dose and should do the job."

/target Malaise

/powexecname Tranq Dart

<Malaise cries out in dismay and faceplants>

<Sister Psyche absorbs the Dirge of Chaos>

Sister Psyche: "I think I'm going to be sick ..."

<Aurora Borealis aims Sister Psyche at Malaise's prone form>

Aurora Borealis: "Better out than in ..."

<Sister Psyche vomits all over Malaise>

Aurora Borealis: "Thanks for the assist, $Character. We'll take it from here."

<Sister Psyche vomits all over Malaise AGAIN>

Aurora Borealis: "Okay, that's not good ..."



DA-TA-DA-DAAAAAAA-DONE!

Hero Merit?
Extra Reward Merits?
Something Else?
Or Something Else?

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I agree, I'd like it if I was helping people less dickish. I'm not asking for Carebears, just someone I don't want to mace.

That said, I have enjoyed feeling like the only competent person in Paragon.

I think one of the difficulties is that we have many response options, none of which is "what are you people, five?!?" I keep having conversations with these guys, and none of the options lets me say that!

In that same vein, I am personally grateful for the opportunity to kick Manticore's butt. Yes, I am still vexed with him over the Twinshot thing, where I ALSO did not have the opportunity to tell him that was a totally jerk move, punch him a good one, turn my back on him and walk away with dramatic contempt. I get to do that here, though, and it's pretty darned satisfying, I have to say.

I can't be the only one who doesn't read back comics. I don't know much of anything anything about these people, other than they perpetually need people on TF's, and occasionally train me up to level 3. Learning about them via the SSA's is like watching a movie where you just don't like any of the characters. It can be an otherwise fine movie, but if I'm not emotionally engaged with any character, then I also don't care what happens to them. If I don't care about what happens to them, then the movie is meaningless. The best movies are the ones where you identify with the characters - especially when you can identify with the bad guys, and you can truly understand how they came to make the choices they did.

I liked Statesman's death thoughts, though, where he flashes back to the people he loves. That got me all teary-eyed, and I got embarrassingly blubbery when the text read that he passed with a small smile on his face. Just that bit explained a whole lot to me in terms of his character. He's crotchety old man, in the body of a 35 year old, having grown up in the days when the only emotion a real man could show was anger. What else could a character like this DO when he's flooded with emotion? He's going to run off until he could control himself and channel everything into getting even "hero-style", right? Obviously, this is my personal take on it, but it holds up and solidifies through all my subsequent re-playing of the episode on various alts.

So I guess in a nutshell, I see "Statesman The Hero" is an old guy yelling at these rotten little villain punks to get off his lawn. He just has a very, very, big lawn.

And I'm kind of okay with that. It makes me want to give the guy a hug, even if he won't have any idea what to do with that.

Sam: You pretty much nailed the biggest plotholes and the worst writing and scripting in the arc.

As to the notion that the Freedom Phalanx has weaknesses that can be exploited by a careful plan: that is the hallmark of a great and thorough villain. My problem is that if the Freedom Phalanx is purportedly "the best," I would hate to see the worst. It is as though they were having a competiton to win "The Biggest Jerk" and were willing to even kill for it.

I have written in detail about some of the plot twists that I objected to in other threads, so I won't pile on the details here. But the whole notion of Warburg threatening the USA already had my "Suspension of Disbelief" meter near the redline. So 1) Statesman cannot go to Warburg 2) only Alexis will do, so do we send the rest of the FP? No, 3) we send ONLY MANTICORE, the least powerful of the lot. Alexis is murdered beyond our ability to affect it and Statesman and Liberty bicker and Statesman takes off, so as to be conveniently unavailable.

Sam again nails the many problems I have with Manticore's motivations, logic and behavior, and my Suspension of Disbelief meter exploded at that point. I would be gilding the lily to add further details to his excellent analysis.

Personally, I have never figured out why the whole bit with Malaise surrendering and dying was necessary. He had access to Psyche, and if the Dirge of Chaos was all that was needed to make the attack successful, why not just do the attack out of the blue and be done with it and escape? I am having a bit of a problem with Malaise doing an obvious suicide mission when it appears that he could have accomplished every goal, including having Manticore try to attack him and Liberty stick up for him, without having to be dead. But let me spot that one for the sake of the plot; although it may not make too much logical sense, if not for the many other problems, I could let it go.

My biggest objection to the writing in this arc remains that the "elite" FP falls apart like a cheap suit and bickers and pouts like a bunch of three year olds, which is an insult to three year olds. As I have alluded to before, Jack Bauer is likewise purportedly "the best of the best" and his organization is likewise "the pinnacle," and their procedures are so staggeringly STUPID in order to let people escape, die or destroy data for the increasingly ludicrous plots that I just could not watch it after a while. And THEY ARE "THE BEST!" Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry and his staff had better procedures.

Statesman, purportedly "the greatest hero," comes off likewise badly in so many different ways, but the "walking into an obvious trap" part is at the top of the list. We have seen him get his powers removed before, and GET KILLED WITH THEM REMOVED BEFORE, but he is supposed to still be so confident that he cannot be harmed that he arrogantly walks (and I do mean WALKS) into the trap while dialoging with the bad guy.

But there is another part of the atrocious writing that just sticks in my craw: Darrin Wade is draining Statesman's powers to take them and use them for evil against the whole world... and Statesman GIVES UP AND LETS HIM. Sure, his dead wife tells him to give it up and die. "Don't worry, honey, let someone else save the world for once. Oh, AND get justice for our daughter. Oh yeah, AND keep our granddaughter from being killed like you are now. Don't sweat it, lambkins, just go ahead and die."

SO HE DOES! IN RECORD TIME! He flops like a fish a couple of times and LIGHTS OUT!

We just saw a MASSIVE PSYCHIC ATTACK on Sister Psyche, as well as Manticore complaining that "so many illusions attacked us" in Warburg... could this be a psychic trick?? NAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So "the greatest hero on Earth" takes the exhortation to die at face value and immediately dies. And then SMILES. *ripping out of hair*

That is so out of character with the self-sacrificial nature of Statesman's entire career. He knows that Wade is not just killing him, he is taking his tremendous powers to continue attacking, but he decides at this moment that he just does not care about that any longer. This, in addition to being an incompetent idiot in order to get killed. Well, to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, "I'm not an incompetent idiot; I'm just written that way this time." It's what the Devs wanted, so that's what happened, and prior logic and experience be dashed.

I guess the Devs own stock in a company that produces medication for high blood pressure. I can skip the coffee this morning.

Sam, preach on, brother.

I agree with you Sam on all your major points. I would also point out that there's one member of the Phalanx not being touched on here because they haven't been drawn into this at all...he wears power armor and is also probably the author. I think you can draw your own conclusions on that one.

I could see as soon as Wade declared he had a master plot that apparently bypassed the ability of the game's major magical factions to work out (if the stuff about how to kill Incarnates had been around since Imperious, why didn't the Thorns or the Mu know about it and try the same thing?) and cursed Statesman with what...the second or third time he'd been captured by magical means?

Anyone who says he underestimated Wade is is being disingenuous, because the game writers themselves established behavior and knowledge for their NPC's.

I appeciate Paragon Studios want to sell this as their divergent point from Cryptic and the past, but I have no hesitation that any outside media source that covers this or player that comes into it fresh won't see it as anything other than really forced and to be brutally honest, a bit self-serving (see comment about power armor above).

So much of this arc reminds me of what's gone on in the big two comic companies, but I think they haven't thought long-term about the fallout. There's two lessons I always bear in mind with writing.

1) There's always someone with a bigger stick;

2)Even heroes need heroes.

The first one is obvious; if we the players become the thing in the game, then where else is the story for us blueside? Does that mean starting players just treat any of the NPC trainers as irrelevant because the SSA arcs have proven you wouldn't want to do anything with them? There's no new bar to set, there's no challenge as a player or a character at that point.

And I believe #2 holds true. Don't we want to be part of the premier superteam, be they the Justice League or the Avengers? Those characters, no matter if they're the patriot or the dark vigilante or the self-made inventor, are characters we admire and want to be like. We wouldn't call them heroes if they didn't. I know that's not a universal for everyone and some people might even say 'we're more mature and sophisticated audiences than when we were kids, that sort of thing is old hat now.'

So why even play a game about superheroes if that's not what we're trying to be? Superheroes are our modern mythology, where we draw inspiration and aspirations even from. High ideal? Perhaps, but they resonate with us nonetheless.

I for one like the paragons of virtue to aspire to. They have a place and a deserved role both as a character and as a player. Making them 'flawed and human' lessens both them and the setting that they inhabit.

I'll personally be very grateful when Paragon Studios gets over their pretensions at superhero deconstruction. Alan Moore you aren't, with all due respect.



S.

See, the point of your argument is that the Freedom Phalanx are incompetent.

I disagree. I think they got caught with their pants down by an enemy they woefully underestimated.

Look at what Wade did, arc by arc.

1) Trapped Synapse, for the sole purpose of testing his relic to ensure that it would work like it's supposed to. Synapse being rescued was completely irrelevant, it would not have mattered in the slightest if he'd lived or died. He also got to remain in the shadows by using the Lost as patsies.

2) Sent his cronies into the Midnighter club to steal the skull of Numina's father. Then showed up himself as a gesture of "goodwill", ostensibly to help the Midnighters. His reason for doing all this? Twofold: A) There was something in the Midnigter Club he needed to further his plan, and he couldn't just walk in and take it, and B) Numina was a threat to his plan, and he wanted her distracted by trying to figure out what the Rulu-Shin wanted with her father's skull. he also wanted to find out if he could steal her powers to, but discovered he couldn't.

3) Killing Alexis Cole-Duncan served one singular purpose: Pissing Statesman off enough for him to ignore any trap Wade set for him in teh assumption that he could just shrug it off.

4) Taking Sister Psyche out of the picture by any means necessary was CRUCIAL to his plan succeeding. Why? She's a frigging mind reader, if she'd been with Statesman she could have warned him exactly what Wade had planned, and he wouldn't have walked right into it.

5) He planted a bunch of red herrings to keep the player character occupied while he set up his trap for Statesman.

As far as the Phalanx's reactions go:

1) No particular reaction in the first arc. Because the Phalanx thought they won.

2) The Phalanx was focused on figuring out what the Rulu Shin wanted with Tommy Arcanus' skull, and hadn't even deduced that they were connected yet.

3) Manticore's reaction is the hardest to explain, but it fits the character. Alexis got kidnapped on his watch. Manticore has a chip on his shoulder about proving that he belongs in the Phalanx, because he is the only member without real superpowers of his own. Everything he does is to prove that he really belongs where he is. As rich as he is, he has a HUGE inferiority complex when you bring metahuman ability into the discussion. That right there explains why he decided to try and recover Alexis on his own, rather than let the other Phalanx members know that he failed at something when they might not have. The kicker there is, after Alexis was kidnapped, nothing he or anyone else could have done would have saved her, because killing her was the entire point. Darrin Wade was very well aware of that inferiority complex of Manticore's, and was counting on him to try and do it on his own.

4) Sister Psyche and Aurora underestimated Malaise, simple as that. They figured that there was no way he could overpower both of them, because they had both been inside his mind and knew exactly how powerful he was. The Dirge was unexpected, and Psyche needed to divert some of her power to keep her, Aurora, and you clearheaded enough to function. Manticore, on the other hand, simply wanted to kill Malaise. He didn't rush to his wife's assistance for one simple fact: She can take care of herself, and has proven that many times. He didn't try to rescue her because he didn't think she was faced with anything she couldn't handle. Once that was proven to be a mistake, there was nothing he could really do about it.

5) I've already covered why Statesman walked into an obvious trap: he didn't know the nature of the trap, and figured he could shrug off whatever it was. And he didn't fly off and leave a bunch of helpless people to fend for themselves, he flew off and left a bunch of people he knew could handle things without him. Which would speak better of the Phalanx: That Statesman is confident enough in his teammates' abilities that he doesn't feel the need to babysit them? -or- Statesman feels like he can't go anywhere because his teammates need him there to hold their hands at all times?

Really, the only person who dropped the ball here is Manticore. His stubborn insistence on proving that he is worthy to be a member of the Phalanx by guarding and rescuing Alexis on his own directly led to her getting killed.

The point of all this is that, unlike what you seem to expect, underneath all their powers the Freedom Phalanx are still human beings and capable of making mistakes. Superhuman powers do not automatically confer an inability to ever make a mistake.

In my opinion, this series of arcs humanized the Phalanx more than anything previously written. They're not omnipotent beings who are so superhumanly competent at everything the do that making a mistake is impossible. They're human beings, with all the flaws inherent in being one.

I'll tell you what the SSA Arc: Who Will Die? reminds me of.

It reminds me of every self-centered, vitriolic rant against the Freedom Phalanx made by a player on this forum. All the behavior you indicated, Sam? It's the same behavior as all the hardcore "The Freedom Phalanx sux! My character, Uuber Guy is SOOOOOO much better!" that we'd been seeing from all sorts of players up to this point.

On top of that, the Phalanx is acting exactly as those posters would depict them as acting. Psyche is inexplicably jealous of Swan (thank you, all of you players who kept saying "How can she trust him when he stands next to that stripper all day?"). Statesman is an insensitive ******* (naturally). Manticore is the master of playing Xanatos Russian Roulette (except he keeps shooting EVERYBODY else in the head).

Really, the only one who acts like a proper hero is...

Back Alley Brawler.

...

Just about the only character who's NEVER been maligned by the playerbase, really.

This entire arc looks and feels like it's been one huge cliche of the playerbase. This is EXACTLY what players have been demanding over the years and it is living up EXACTLY to our expectations. There are even a few times when the characters quote our opinions, to really hammer the nail home.

How awful. I say that without irony or sarcasm. This arc is a clear-cut example of how truly terrible we view the City of Heroes world.

How awful.

Can't fault a word you say there, Mr. Grey. The most vocal part of the forumites are getting exactly what they wished for, or hoped was true.

I honestly wonder when people became so jaded and cynical about heroes, and what it means to be heroic. Maybe they'd prefer the Minute Men and Rorscach being their contacts instead.....


ClawsandEffect, your argument would work for me except for the fact that the story is written to go Wade's way. Not because he's brilliant or planned well. I think the number of posts (including my own) that are doing what Sam suggests any writer should do (that is to poke around for holes in the story) continues to refute your arguments.

You're arguing the 'flawed and human' perspective on the story when what we actually see is their mistakes. And that's no reflection on your theories on what's happened, it's just what does happen in the story. If the plan is so brilliant, then why can we (who aren't in possession of meta-knowledge of the story) see through it so easily and ask 'hey, hang on...how did Wade....?' and so on.

At some point you have to take a step back and ask if the story works rather than looking at the story and trying to make it work. You're filling in a lot of gaps the story doesn't tell us about without asking if it works in the first place. And the point you have to do that is the point that the story stops standing on its own merits.

Look at your most recent post. You're giving explanations you personally see as to why the story works (and that's fine, noone begrudges you that), but I don't see how that backs up the story as presented, which is what myself and Sam and a few others are arguing here. I know for myself I'm looking at the story as a reader first, and it simply doesn't stack up. It's not me looking for problems in the story; they're so glaringly obvious in my eyes I can't help but see them. I'm not being an apologist for the Phalanx or anyone else.

Nor do I ascribe to 'because they're human and flawed, they're more interesting' argument. Look at Superman. That S-Shield of his is the second most recognised symbol on the planet and although he might be to your eyes superhumanly competent and such, he and his ideals are admired and respected regardless of culture and class. That is the mark of a good character, nothing to do with how human and flawed they are, something that has been frankly overdone and is overused in literature lately.

You don't have to be a good flawed character, you just need to be a good character.


S.

Wouldn't this be less "The Freedom Phalanx are incompetent" and more of "The writing staff needs to get their act together"?

The Freedom Phalanx is suppossed to be a group of amazing heroes. Not incompetents.

And Positron's 2 appearances since becoming leader have invovled him being defeated and captured - so it's hardly godmoding