SSA #6 Story Discussion ** SPOILERS **
By
15bribri15,
Posted on: 2012-02-21 05:43 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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In the Marvel Universe, there's ultimately two different kinds of beings. The first kind use tools to manipulate energy. There's two kinds of those: those that wield technology and those that wield non-inherent magic. In the Marvel Universe, guns and bullets are tools. Spells and symbols are also tools, tools that tap different kinds of energy (typically but not always extradimensional energy). In the Marvel Universe, both sets of tools ultimately lead to the second kind of being: a being that *intrinsically* wields and controls "cosmic" or other energy. Basically, science and magic become indistinguishable when both are tapping universally powerful energies.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
I mean it's a false dichotomy in the sense that "if it's not science, it has to be magic." It doesn't have to be magic. That's why I brought up the Power Cosmic, which itself seems to overlap with magic and science and seems to go beyond both in particular ways. It's more akin to a kind of divine energy (although a science fictiony version of divine). And divine energy itself does not have to qualify as magic, although in some settings it does. In some settings, it does not.
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The power cosmic isn't magical although its effects can seem so relative to the real world, for the necessary and sufficient reason that its theoretically understandable and controllable with scientific methods within the Marvel Universe. In fact, Marvel has generally skewed in the direction of stating that most magic is either science we don't understand yet, or science from a different universe that seems magical because their rules are so different from the normal universe's rules.
The way that the Marvel Universe "unifies" magic and science doesn't work for Origin of Power, because the Marvel Universe doesn't say there is a *singular* source for science and technology. What the Marvel Universe says is that beyond a certain point, scientific mastery of natural forces is indistinguishable from magical mastery of magical forces. Its all cosmic beings wielding cosmic power, sometimes from a different cosmos.
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My point is that the nature of the Well doesn't make it magical, necessarily. It probably has more in common with cosmic entities than it does with Doctor Strange. That viewing it as another order of magic strikes me as sticking with a rigid framework where there never has been and probably never will be a rigid framework - which is to say, CoH's origin setup.
Say all the Well really does is raise the ceiling on human potential, but doesn't really define how people can reach that potential. When people do reach the limits of that potential, they can access the Well directly and transcend those limitations.
But that still doesn't strike me as inherently magical. The existence of the Well may simply be one of the consequences of sapience.
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By "everyone", you mean "Venture", yes?
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Originally Posted by Venture
It's not even part of "his plan", it's not part of the storyline that everyone is complaining about and you know it, which is why this entire avenue of approach is disingenuous at best.
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In Camazotz all are equal. Everybody is the same as everybody else.
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Originally Posted by SuperOz
Having taken a couple of steps away from the story as a whole presented so far, and ending what I think could've simply devolved into a slanging match (at least on my part), and yes I'll apologise to Doctor Minerva even if my essential sentiments on our disagreements remain the same.
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Oz: Let me an extend an apology of my own and explain a little bit of where I'm coming from.
Two of my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien and Roger Zelazny, were very good about explaining in the context of their work how apparent mistakes in their work were not actually mistakes. Nowadays, we might call that a retcon, but they were both talented writers, and when flaws were pointed out in their narratives, they each sat down, and thought about why things would have played out the way they did.
I read them each when I was much younger and I've largely internalized this habit. So when I see something that seems to contradict something previously established in a story, I'm reluctant to call it a plot hole right away. I might look at it and say "That seems weird," but I try to accept and explain it in the context of the story. We might not have all the information, or this apparent contradiction might be a clue, or the actors in the story might have simply made a bad choice in the heat of the moment. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems that you approach stories from very different assumptions, and this may be we've arrived at very different conclusions about the SSAs.
Edit: From my point of view, trying to explain "Why did things happen as they did?" is a very different question from "Why didn't things happen in another way?" and that has informed a lot of my arguments here.
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I really like this turn of phrase, and I will be stealing it for my DC Adventures campaign, in which John is an NPC.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Somehow, an analogous thing happens in the City of Heroes universe. Some beings armed with a gun and a utility belt of devices take down Cthulu. John Constantine has done it with a knife, some candles, and his middle finder.
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Wouldn't all that fall in line with the whims of the writer more than some ability? Like the complaints people have with Batman.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't know that it fails *worse* for them. I believe the canonical implication is that while anyone can pick up a gun and try to fight crime, most of them get gunned down in the street. There is something *special* about the heroes who *apparently* use nothing but natural means to be superheroic: call it luck, call it Ferris Bueller Syndrome, call it The Jazz. Something makes those people "just work" and its something deep within the way the universe works that creates such people.
The character of John Constantine was said to possess, and claimed to be able to control, a quintessential aspect of the universe called "synchronicity" which allowed him to subconsciously know the right place to be and the right things to do to have a huge impact on the world. Nearly everything he did wasn't ascribable to magic as such: he didn't have magical powers (most of the time) and he rarely used magical forces directly. In The Books of Magic he shows up to save Tim Hunter and Zatanna from a club full of magical beings that were going to capture or kill Hunter. He shows up and basically tells them he's going to take the two of them and leave, and dares any of them to stop him. Which they all decide not to. When they leave Zatanna tells John that he has no magical powers and any one of them could have killed him easily, and wonders how he did that. John simply says that *is* his power. He says "stop me if you can" and they all run away, because they were all thinking the same thing: if he has the balls to do that, he must be more dangerous than they think. Which is his power: he knew the right thing to say, and it works - for him. It wouldn't for anyone else. You could argue that riding synchronicity is a natural ability: its definitely not science, mutation, or technology. Its either magical or natural, but here no magical process occurs. John's weapons are sarcasm, bravado, psychology, and a little knowledge about forces beyond his actual control, and with those very mundane weapons he's taken down some of the most powerful beings in his universe. Somehow, an analogous thing happens in the City of Heroes universe. Some beings armed with a gun and a utility belt of devices take down Cthulu. John Constantine has done it with a knife, some candles, and his middle finder. Origin of Power implies there's some "thing" that makes this possible, but doesn't elaborate on it. But to be honest, the same conclusion was reachable *before* Origin of Power, so I don't know what it adds either. |
Or does one just say that's Batman's ability to?
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Technically, the Well hasn't been explicitly and directly linked to Origin of Power (as far as I know), so I can concede that**. But Origin of Power arc itself unambiguously stipulates that *something* is the source of the super-abilities of the five origins, and for it to be able to explain both magic and technology and be the wellspring of both, it essentially has to be magic, given the expansive definition of magic that is promoted by the game.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
My point is that the nature of the Well doesn't make it magical, necessarily. It probably has more in common with cosmic entities than it does with Doctor Strange. That viewing it as another order of magic strikes me as sticking with a rigid framework where there never has been and probably never will be a rigid framework - which is to say, CoH's origin setup.
Say all the Well really does is raise the ceiling on human potential, but doesn't really define how people can reach that potential. When people do reach the limits of that potential, they can access the Well directly and transcend those limitations. But that still doesn't strike me as inherently magical. The existence of the Well may simply be one of the consequences of sapience. |
The corner the devs have painted themselves into is fundamental, and has nothinig to do with semantics or dictionaries. It has to do with the fact that the devs *want* all five origins in combination to be able to explain *any* origin - if they don't, the players can come up with a conceptual origin that can't be created. But then they want to make a sixth origin that is a higher origin and is substantively different from the other five. That is a logical contradiction.
We don't get to pick *power level* upon origin, so if the higher origin was an advanced version of one of the five, say science or magic, there would be no logical contradiction. But by claiming its different and beyond the five, the devs are saying here are five things which collectively cover everything, and here's a sixth thing that is different from the five.
** I should say not only do I concede that, its essentially how I would personally explain the Well in the absence of Origin of Power. I would say that the Well is orthogonal to the five origins: the origins are paths to power and the Well is the thing that defines the *potential* of those paths to power. But to interpret the Well's story and Origin of Power in that way requires a lot of hand waving. You basically have to interpret the contacts in Origin as being highly unreliable narrators.
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Its an ability.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Wouldn't all that fall in line with the whims of the writer more than some ability? Like the complaints people have with Batman.
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I always consider Percy Winkley to be an unreliable narrator.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You basically have to interpret the contacts in Origin as being highly unreliable narrators.[/i]
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Am I a bad person because I laughed when sister psyche got shot?
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Thought we could use a thread about SSA6 that wasn't about "it's here" or "and other stuff on the market" or "and new powersets" but just about *the story* and the big reveal.
Sister Psyche is dead. So... Who Will Die? Isn't just about Statesman, but about Sister Psyche, too. And who knows... maybe more. Characters in and out of the Freedom Phalanx are now dead. More to come? |
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Generally, yes.
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Originally Posted by Doctor_Minerva
By "everyone", you mean "Venture", yes?
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But if all of the narrators are unreliable, what's the point of having an Origin of Power story arc in the first place. The arc is almost nothing but exposition. An arc that is nothing but unreliable exposition about a subject the players themselves rarely agree upon and the devs then proceed to do nothing with is basically saying that the reason Origin of Power is not nonsensical is because its pointless instead.
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
I always consider Percy Winkley to be an unreliable narrator.
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No more than me when I heard about her getting pierced: "What, again?" |
Originally Posted by Santorican
Am I a bad person because I laughed when sister psyche got shot?
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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I wasn't handwaving, what I said is basically how Prometheus explains the well, or at least what I understand his explanation to mean.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
** I should say not only do I concede that, its essentially how I would personally explain the Well in the absence of Origin of Power. I would say that the Well is orthogonal to the five origins: the origins are paths to power and the Well is the thing that defines the *potential* of those paths to power. But to interpret the Well's story and Origin of Power in that way requires a lot of hand waving. You basically have to interpret the contacts in Origin as being highly unreliable narrators.
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This just in: The story does not improve when you drag Psyche through multiple levels of Oranbega, deliver her to the altar, and have the entire team mapserve and crash to login.
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...Okay. What the pancaking hell is this?
Heroes once again fall for possibly the stupidest trap again. What about us Genre Savvy heroes who actually KNOW when a trap is very obviously a trap?!
And yet ANOTHER heroes drops dead. I mean really, Wade's power levels of "Exactly as planned" is surpassing everyone in the canon, even Emperor Cole. I'm just...god. My birthday is next month, the 29th, and I have to look forward to the finale of this ridiculous arc.
So tell me, are the heroes going to get to exact payback at some point?
I recall someone asking earlier in this thread, and I'm asking here now:
When can we start cutting out villains permanently? Like say, Mako? Ghost Widow? LORD RECLUSE?
It's mind-boggling that villains have the status-quo maintained perfectly, while heroside, everyone is fair game and has a GIANT bullseyes painted all over their entire body!
And again, villains get a secret cutscene that heroes DON'T get, leaving blueside with only half the story once again.
Devs, seriously. I'm all for a good story where the heroes aren't perfect saviors and get their butts handed to them, but this is borderline overkill. Forcing us to fall for easy traps, forcing us to fail despite the fact we should be able to do something about the situation.
It's hilarious that we're lauded as being "someone Wade fears", but putting the player up on a pedastal is something that only the new DA arcs seem capable of doing properly. At least there we're treated as a viable threat and it shows. Here we're just TOLD we're a threat but it's never put into anything beyond mere words!
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I didn't say you were handwaving, I said it would require a lot of handwaving for Prometheus' description of the Well of the Furies to resolve the problem with Origin of Power.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
I wasn't handwaving, what I said is basically how Prometheus explains the well, or at least what I understand his explanation to mean.
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The fundamental problem is that Origin of Power claims there used to be one origin for all power that the five current origins desend from. But without defining science and magic in very specific ways, that is illogical. Furthermore, Origin of Power also claims there was a time before magic as we know it, but that magic itself descends from the gods. That seems to elevate magic to have a root source that is still magical in nature, but simply unwieldable by humans until the war of the gods.
I'm specifically ignoring statements like this, by the way:
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Here's an interesting fact. Did you know that there were no mutants as we call them before 1938? Now can you tell me why? ... The correct answer was that it was the same year that the atom was split. Many believe that this had a profound effect on every living thing. That somehow this basic division rippled throughout every atom, causing the split from what we once considered normal to something else. |
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That just sounds like lazy writing. Have they never heard of evolution?
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Here's an interesting fact. Did you know that there were no mutants as we call them before 1938? Now can you tell me why? ... The correct answer was that it was the same year that the atom was split. Many believe that this had a profound effect on every living thing. That somehow this basic division rippled throughout every atom, causing the split from what we once considered normal to something else. |
Have anyone of you thought that the reason Wade's plans have so far worked flawlessly and seemed foolproof is that......
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He is from the future?
This is just one or maybe the final set of adjustments to a scheme that he has tried and failed on. The only real loose end this time that he has to counter is the player character, at least as far as he knows. Now the rest of his plan after he finishes this may not work as planned because he hasn't gotten that far yet, but as long as he doesn't get killed, then he can keep trying.
Now if he also kills Recluse and a powerful mage from the Rogue Isles, then it would makes some sense to me and also finish off the last major player tied to the well. This would destabilize the Isles as Recluse's Lts fight for control of the Isles and in my mind make things over there far more interesting than they are now.
He is doing this because he is part of the Coming Storm, though he may not know this.
Just a thought I had that would tie up a lot of things and involve far more groups that the SSAs have so far like the menders.
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KM, time travel is one of many features in the game that pose a problem in having the Devs get the results that they want, ie Statesman and Alexis dead for sure and for good, and possibly Sister Psyche. Wade's Evil Plan, once revealed to the Player, would be easy to foil using Ouroboros to return to any number of points in Wade's life and bonking him on the head, stealing his technology, etc. Even Bill and Ted could steal his keys and ruin his day.|
Originally Posted by Knight_Marshal
Have anyone of you thought that the reason Wade's plans have so far worked flawlessly and seemed foolproof is that......
. . . . . He is from the future? |
So there is already a tremendous amount of hand-waving there already, but if WADE using time travel is the reason his Evil Plan succeeds, you hit Ludricrous Speed instantly. He can use time travel but somehow, we can't?
The main problem with "Who Will Die?" is not that the Devs' silence on any number of plot points cannot be logically resolved. There have been some GREAT explanations offered here on the forums by folks to fill in the blanks. Had these explanations been part of the exposition in the stories themselves, they would have worked.
But the Devs just summarily had a number of things occur without any explanation at all, which is simply terrible writing. I won't repeat the list, but all manner of conflicts in motivation and characterization are raised.
What if the events of "Casablanca" just took place without Rick's speech about Paris or Ilsa's attempt to obtain the letters? Instead of a classic film with beloved characters, you would have a film where the audience is scratching its collective head wondering why on Earth what just happened took place with a bunch of cardboard characters whose motives cannot be fathomed. Sure, individual audience members could make suggestions to rescue the situation, but it would be terrible storytelling by the filmmakers.
So while your theory, in and of itself, is a fine one and makes perfect sense, I REALLY hope the Devs did not handwave our use of time travel away while making it the linchpin of Wade's plot.
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
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I said something similar upthread, but not as well, but this ties into something that I actually kind of like about the redside/blueside arc. I like it that the heroes don't learn everything and probably never will, but that you can learn a little more of the background from the redside arcs.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
How do you know that. There appears to be no way to prove that yet, given that Wade hasn't actually revealed his entire plan yet, and may never within canon reveal all of the contingencies his plan contained.
To even begin to make the claim, you would have to demonstrate that at no time during the story line to date did anything surprise Wade, and at no time did he plan multiple contingencies that ended up being unnecessary. I would like to see such an attempt. |
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Originally Posted by Venture
It's not even part of "his plan", it's not part of the storyline that everyone is complaining about and you know it, which is why this entire avenue of approach is disingenuous at best.
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It seems like you've defined your thesis to be unfalsifiable. Wade might meet setbacks or fail to achieve his goals, but you want to limit the terms of the discussion to exclude such failures, because they are not part what you imagine his nebulously-defined finger-steepling "Exactly as Planned" Xanatos Gambit plan to be.
All sarcasm aside, it really seems like your claims can be reduced to "Leaving aside his mistakes, Wade has not made a single mistake!" and that's technically true, but by that time the argument has been reduced to meaninglessness.
You gave me a sarcastic non-answer when I said that it was foolish of Wade to show his face to the Midnighters. There are any number of possible explanations for why he did this, but the fact remains that it was done. Based on her Mercedes Sheldon's later dialogue, it does seem to tip them off to his involvement and make things more difficult for him.
I'll leave some blank space here so you can post yet another link to a sixty-year essay on writing mysteries, which, as we all know applies equally well to all media and should serve as the perfect roadmap for writing an interactive story in a 2012 online superhero game.
In Camazotz all are equal. Everybody is the same as everybody else.
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Did I miss something? What mistakes has Wade made? He looks to be firing on all cylinders, to me. Mistakes that he makes off-screen where I never see them are useless from a story-telling standpoint. Why should I grant him a pass because he might have made some mistakes that I don't know about and never will know about?|
Originally Posted by Doctor_Minerva
All sarcasm aside, it really seems like your claims can be reduced to "Leaving aside his mistakes, Wade has not made a single mistake!" and that's technically true, but by that time the argument has been reduced to meaninglessness.
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I, as a player/reader, should not have to invent a second story in order for the first story to become palatable. I shouldn't have to wave my hands and say "Wade did have setbacks but they didn't involve you so you don't know about them." or "Wade did have contingencies and he was forced to use some of them but you don't get to see that he had to do that because it doesn't affect your perspective on the story."
That's the big problem here. Almost everyone who defends the story starts writing their own story to fill in the blanks. Well, the blanks are what I'm complaining about. If I wanted a story full of blanks to fill in, I'd write it myself and tell the story I wanted to tell from start to finish.
This is supposedly the premier super hero team in the world. Instead of working together and having each other's back, they're all working at odds and they have no frigging clue what they're doing most of the time. This is not a team. It's a group of individuals following their individual agendas and behaving like rookies. Frankly, if this is the way that the Freedom Phalanx handles a chain of crises of this magnitude then they deserve to go down in flames like they are currently in the process of doing.
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My personal theory of why Wade's Nemesis grade Xanatos gambits work is because they are Nemesis plots.|
Originally Posted by Knight_Marshal
Have anyone of you thought that the reason Wade's plans have so far worked flawlessly and seemed foolproof is that......
. . . . . He is from the future? |
Nemesis wanted States out of the way, Wade wants Rularuu's power, Mender Silos wants the Rularuu around to fight the Battalion.
Wade may think it's all his doing but Nemesis has been busy making sure Wade cannot screw up his (Nemesis') plans. Why else would all his automata be so glitchy recently other than spending all his mental resources making sure that two-bit loser punk Wade actually succeeds?
Because Silos wants the Rularuu around, the Menders won't be tampering with the timeline (unless it is to erase a blue win in #7...). So no going back in time and saving Miss Liberty, States, or SP.
edit: just to be clear, I'm not defending the WWD writing, merely trying to construct a framework that would allow for a no-name hasbeeen to pull off what he has short of being an outright god moding Marty Stu, which is the most logical assumption. Though for all his planning, Nemesis shouldn't have been able to keep my hero from taking Wade down in #2, if not personally the salsa makers (aka trip mines) would have taken care of him.
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He didn't Synapse's power. He didn't get Numina's power. He tipped his hand by showing up in the Midnighter's mansion. He leaves enough clues that you figure out who is behind the plan. Malaise failed against Sister Psyche. Wade twice failed to kill you. He tried to double cross Tyrka and made an enemy out of an ally. Redside, he does the same thing to the PC. These are pretty trivial, sure, but he certainly didn't get everything he wanted.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
Did I miss something? What mistakes has Wade made? He looks to be firing on all cylinders, to me. Mistakes that he makes off-screen where I never see them are useless from a story-telling standpoint. Why should I grant him a pass because he might have made some mistakes that I don't know about and never will know about?
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I, as a player/reader, should not have to invent a second story in order for the first story to become palatable.
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This is a comic book story. No, it's not even a comic book story. Right now it's 6/7ths of a comic book story, and the boards have been declaring it a failure for how long? It follows the arc of the narrative pretty closely, what with increasing successes right up until the dramatic failure at the 11th hour.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
That's the big problem here. Almost everyone who defends the story starts writing their own story to fill in the blanks. Well, the blanks are what I'm complaining about. If I wanted a story full of blanks to fill in, I'd write it myself and tell the story I wanted to tell from start to finish.
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It really strikes me that a lot of the criticism around here amounts to "My hero would have done X instead," with the unspoken assumption that this would have been the right thing to do, and that the writer has somehow failed by writing something else. A story is never going address every question of "Why didn't they do X instead?" Those questions are asking about matters outside the story, so to address them, the responses have to make inferences and speculate on matters implied but not stated by the story.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
This is supposedly the premier super hero team in the world. Instead of working together and having each other's back, they're all working at odds and they have no frigging clue what they're doing most of the time. This is not a team. It's a group of individuals following their individual agendas and behaving like rookies. Frankly, if this is the way that the Freedom Phalanx handles a chain of crises of this magnitude then they deserve to go down in flames like they are currently in the process of doing.
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And Manticore messes up an awful lot and it was foolish to leave him as the sole bodyguard for Alexis, but I didn't see any egregious mistakes from anyone else. They do seem to get their act together by the end of SSA 4.By the end of the third arc, Sister Psyche asks "I'm not here to play games! Were you behind the attack on Synapse? On Numina's father?" but I don't think there's evidence that they knew there were connections before that.
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