Nuclear Weapons and Arachnos

So, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Rogue Isles are on the UN crap list for developing nuclear weapons (hijacked by Blitz). That was like the big thing, and we're made to get really threatened by some loaded silos in Warburg.

Except Arachnos has a ghost that can steal your flipping soul, a predatory mutant that can tear open ships with a smile, a bug-modeled super armored soldier who is essentially immune to conventional assaults, a desert-spirit-like entity who can summon sandstorms... and Recluse himself, who has power only slightly below Statesman, who we know can survive nuclear blasts.

Interdimensional capabilities, time travel, GIANT ROBOT SPIDERS POWERED BY PSYCHICS, constant assaults against the US, seers that can predict the future.....

It just seems they need to give us something better. At this point, nuclear is easy. Where are my Singularity Bombs, HyperEbola Rockets, or Nova Missiles.... something that we know a hero can't shoot down if they have to.

It's equatable to someone threatening to fire a nuke at us in the real world; it simply isn't feasible.

To be fair, none of the things you listed remove entire cities from the map before a reaction can be mounted (at least, not without creative usage). But sure, antimatter bombs or Outbreak Plague bioweapons or something would feel more comic-book-y and less real-world-politics-y.

What they have so far seems more plausible and believable with the amount suspension of belief required than say, World of Warcraft in my opinion.

Besides, in comics, Nuclear weapons are just too ... ordinary. Sure they're devestating but really, do you think Lord Recluse would rely on something as pedestrian as a nuclear weapon??

YAWN

In addition to the aforementioned lethal subordinates he has...

Legions of beautiful women who are all trained assassins and/or psychics

Tarantulas (creepy psychic spider women)

Floaty, lightning throwing Mystics

Crab spiders (don't know about you but they intimidate the heck out of me)

A mad scientist who has figured out how to power an island with a captive demon (and made liver flavored algae paste, yum)

Yeah, a man with all of these toys would nuke you only if he really didn't care.

"Oh, it's you. I don't have time for you.... BOOM"

"Sir! New intelligence report on Arachnos! They've completed development on their Super-Spider robotic gun platform powered by psychic ghosts!"

"That's just stupid. It's a giant bug! Our tanks will squish it good."

"Afraid not sir, our agent inside says it has impervium armor around its vitals and a force field strong enough to stop HEAT rounds, and main weaponry that cantake out city blocks in seconds."

"Well, for - looks like the Air Force will get the kill on this one. I wish I had a few of those MOABs... They blow up robots good."

"...Also, sir, they have nukes."

"GET ME THE SECRETARY-GENERAL NOW!"

It's not so much how powerful something is, it's how it fits in your ability to comprehend it.

If you read the history plaques, those nukes are left-overs from the '60s, and Blitz doesn't want the nukes. Malta is selling him much better weapons than that already.

And Arachnos already has better weapons than that, anyway; orbital weapons platforms and sub-orbital rockets are so retro-60s, you know. That's why player character heroes have to stop them from finishing and deploying the Grandville Array in the STF, and stop them from altering the timestream in RV. Oh, yeah, and as Serenity_NA just reminded me, a couple of years back they had the Jade Spider battlemech with its psi-blast weaponry. Ultra-tech enough for you?

BTW, I have begged every keeper of the story bible that this game has ever had to clarify the Rogue Isles' position with respect to the UN, and I've never gotten an entirely clear answer. The current impression I have is that it's close to the US's position on Taiwan vs China: there is no such country, they don't recognize its secession from the US.

Nukes keep the threat to Paragon City, but make it "normal" enough to not need a lot of the storyline to focus on it - comicbook style super weapons are the kind of things TFs, Trials and story arcs deal with - the Arachnos nuclear threat is mostly just background flavor to show how dangerous they are, and how such a small country could threaten America and get away with it for so long.

I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe.

You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off.

Wouldn't it be funny if the nukes weren't actually nukes? Every time one is fired if breaks up in the atmosphere and deploys a device into orbit.

The device? A component belonging to a nearly-finished orbital ion cannon.

That's not funny.

It's just a damn good idea.

To be fair, they're not just nukes. There can also be biological or chemical weapons on those Warburg rockets.

While nuclear weapons are indeed viable threats, even in a world of super heroes, I never could help that the OP is right, and I feel this is one of the major failings of City of Heroes.

We live in a world of super powers, but everything is so damn normal. Why aren't the Steel Canyon Star Scrapers with things like Buddhist temples or an arbitrary rural house? Where are the buildings that have garden terraces and grass top roofs with trees growing out of them? Why is the military so woefully plan in it's technological capabilities compared to the guy who's been building a suit of powered armor in a cave with a box of scraps? Why aren't the tanks equipped with high-powered railguns, capable of hovering off the ground (with jumping abilities), and armed with anti-aircraft missiles and miniature versions of the GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun? Why do we have these dumb rotor-based helicopters and not more jet engine VTOLs like the Sky Skiff or Longbow Chaser?

I suppose, as pointed out, it's to try to keep players from disconnecting too much with the reality the game is set in. If things were too super, it would seem less like a super powered earth with everyday magic and super-science and more like some alien world with poorly planned thematics.

Quote:

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.

In a comics based world, all of that contrast is normal.

For a person living in that world you just accept that there are mundane and explainable things like helicopters and cars, and nuclear weapons, and toasters, while at the same time you accept that there are people walking around with quark beams, and zero point generators, and all sorts of exotic weirdness. It just comes with the territory.

As I mentioned in one of my bits of fiction recently...

"They may be Super, but they're still human."

If those are automatic railguns, I'm a monkeys uncle. Got any literature on that?

for those asking why the heroes aren't doing more get an awesome graphic novel called: Squadron Supreme.
It was a group of heroes with similar powers and abilities as the Justice League deciding to make the world a better place. The problem being where do you draw the line?