SSA #6 Story Discussion ** SPOILERS **

Okay maybe I am missing something here, but I am really not getting all the people that are not happy about the whole SSA about the Freedom Phalanx not being about us (player). I mean it's about them, if anything to me this comes off more of a set up to change the way things are, and the part we play as a Hero/Villain is the thing of being able to say "yeah I was there, I saw when it went down".

I mean a lot of people say they want it to be all about the player, looks to me like it is being set up that way, yeah not in THIS story but you have to have a start somewhere right?

Like I said, maybe I am wrong, but when we where told from the start what this whole story of arcs was gonna be about for the most part, I kind of got right off bat this isn't so much our story as a changing moving history forward story so that when the storm comes, it will be our story and ours alone (well i guess on a team XD)

I avoided this thread until after I'd played it for myself, but I wanted to mention one thing:

I called this at the very beginning. When everyone was speculating on who was going to die before the SSAs ever started I had 2 theories: BaBs biting it, and Sister Psyche dying and Manticore going bad.

Looks like my second theory may be pretty accurate after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black_Wildfire_EU A friend pointed out we now know who the mysterious hero in white and red is, but I just noticed there are 2 well known heroes absent from the image. If we go up against Wade in the final part, will Manticore sacrifice himself?

Unlikely.

At the end of SSA 6 it mentions his eyes being colder than before.

I'm betting Manticore will be a hardcore vigilante or full blown villain by the end of this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ogi If BABs wasn't in that picture I'd say things didn't look good for the odds on favorite to die before WWD launch. When do we start the redside purge?

Redside purge is unlikely. If anything, they have been cutting down the number of Freedom Phalanx members to match that of Recluse and his inner circle.

Positron, Synapse, BaBs, Numina, Citadel.

Recluse, Mako, Ghost Widow, Scirocco, Black Scorpion.

Even if Manticore survives this, his remaining a Freedom Phalanx member is pretty unlikely at this point. My bet is he will become a full blown vigilante and publicly take control of Wyvern, instead of being their shadowy benefactor like he's been up to now.

Here's a wrinkle to the Mind Riding angle for getting OUT of this situation.



Point One.

Manticore doesn't shoot Sister Psyche in the HEAD, he shoots her in the thorax/abdomen. *DEATH* from such a shot would not be instant, although the trauma would almost certainly shut down consciousness in fairly short order (which was the whole point of the exercise). Leave the arrow in her to staunch the inevitable horrendous bleeding ... which seems ridiculously counter-intuitive, but there you go.



Point Two.

When Sister Psyche is Mind Riding another host her original body stops aging!

Think about what that means in greater detail. HER *MUTANT* BODY STOPS AGING. A necessary consequence of that sort of thing even being possible is for her body to not only go "dormant" but also fall into a state of stasis. I'm talking "death LIKE shutdown" of any and all bodily functions (relative to "normal" humans). Which then begs the question of whether or not such a condition meets the necessary criterion for Darrin Wade's Power Stealing Obelisk to be able to "do its thing" and try and steal Sister Psyche's power(s).



Point Three.

This is very much open to interpretation. Analyze the cutscene in SSA 6 Mission 3 very carefully and you'll notice something very interesting. As Samuraiko pointed out, the Word Balloons are color coded "correctly" to indicate exactly *WHO* is talking at all times. But here's the key thing everyone might be missing.

AT NO POINT after Sister Psyche *screams* out JUSTIN! does Manticore say a single word. And Manticore had just been very emphatically saying (people's opinions in this thread to the contrary) that *HE* would not KILL her. And if you closely watch his body language (great job on the emoting here, Devs!), it is *possible* that it wasn't Manticore at all who "shot" Sister Psyche ... but rather Sister Psyche herself, Mind Riding Manticore, who "did the deed" to pull the bow and shoot the arrow.

Again ... this is open to interpretation ... but when confronted with needing to do the "unthinkable" Manticore isn't *willing* to do what must be done (because he is THE MAN WITHOUT A PLAN in all of this). You then see him look down at his own two shaking hands ... as if there were either a struggle for control of his mind and body(?), or because he yields to the "inevitable" of what he HAS TO DO (and setting aside all of the "just detoggle her you idiot!" arguments). It is therefore *possible* ... although we don't have anywhere near enough evidence to conclusively prove this ... that as an act of desperation, Sister Psyche, on her own initiative, "jumped" to Manticore and was/is Mind Riding him, and shot *herself* (so to speak) because her husband couldn't/wouldn't do that to her (and it "needed" to be done).



Point Four.

*IF* any (and all?) of the above is correct ... that opens up a *VERY INTERESTING* possibility.

The first thing is that the age old adage of "In order to deceive your enemies, you must first deceive your friends" comes into play with massive force. Above all, it is absolutely imperative for everyone who is NOT Manticore and Sister Psyche to *BELIEVE* that Sister Psyche is DEAD (even if she's not). It needs to be "convincing" and it needs to have witnesses. The mere fact that you're told by your mission contact (as soon as you get back to him) that:

Quote:

"There's nothing you could have done, {charactername}, had you been there. You'd have been killed too, and the droids would now be in the hands of the empire."

... wait, no ... sorry ... wrong quote.
You're told by your mission contact that Darrin Wade "now has Sister Psyche's powers" ... without even giving the slightest indication of HOW this was accomplished or even that this has in some way been DEMONSTRATED AND PROVEN by events elsewhere (in the less than a minute it takes you to travel back to your contact after exiting the mission). It's just "assumed" (why? for what reason?) that Wade now has Sister Psyche's powers too, since she's now "Dead" by Manticore's hands (and very pointy stick with fletchings). If your contact "knows this" that fast, then it's beyond easy to assume that Darrin Wade will "know" as well that Sister Psyche is "dead" ... except ... is she?

If Sister Psyche, with Manticore's (willing?) help is "playing possum" about being dead ... then what's really needed in SSA 6 Mission 3 is for the Player Character to "witness" the act of "The Kill" ... confirm that Manticore is "not himself" ... and then LEAVE. Once your character and Penelope Yin are gone, Manticore('s body, with Sister Psyche's consciousness in the driver's seat) can go about the grisly business of securing Sister Psyche's (impaled) body in a highly protected medical facility where the arrow in her body can be removed and her physical wound(s) sewn up ... although any sort of healing for that problem can't take place until Sister Psyche's mind returns to her own wounded body (and turns the lights on again inside of it). The "nice" thing about all of this is that since her body is in a state of "stasis" and not aging, there's *TIME* to go about doing this that would NOT be available otherwise. Basically, the "lethal" wound dealt to her is something that Sister Psyche can "do something about" ... unlike a normal human ... by being sneaky about it (and putting her own body "on pause" by Mind Riding someone else).

Meanwhile ... "everyone" believes that Sister Psyche is DEAD (when she really isn't) and because of that, Darrin Wade believes that his scheme has worked and proceeds to the next phase of his Master Plan. The problem is that Sister Psyche and Manticore have deceived Darrin Wade into making a critical error, that will then result in all of the unraveling of his long laid plans.

Since Sister Psyche's body needs to stay hospitalized, Manticore permits her to once again Mind Ride him (once her body is stabilized and in the best of care). Manticore/Psyche then manage to infiltrate Darrin Wade's Ritual Lair and at the critical moment are present at the right place, and at the right time, to be able to have Sister Psyche reclaim whatever power(s) Darrin Wade believes he stole from her under the precedent of the "Synapse Clause" of I'm not REALLY dead yet as established in SSA 1. Darrin Wade's plan for taking control of Rularuu backfires horribly, and it is Darrin Wade who is "devoured" by Rularuu The Devourer just before the Player Character seals off the Rift which made contact with the Shadow Shard from Primal Earth possible and allowing everyone (except Darrin Wade) to escape ... thus Saving The Day (and finally doing something RIGHT for once, whether you're a Hero or a Villain).



Is such a possibility "a stretch" ... as they say? Most definitely.

But do we have *proof* that something like this is not only NOT POSSIBLE, but also NOT happening? Suffice it to say, the evidence of falsifiability isn't there.



As I said ... open to interpretation.

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

Classic comic book story.

To be honest I'm just getting tired of everything falling back to a magic "ritual". I mean, come on, think of some new plot points here.

Let's see, we've got a very specific Zeus-Incarnate-killing ritual. Or maybe it's a Marcus-Cole-Lookalike-killing ritual. Either way it's a bit of a misnomer, since it's not exactly something that can be practiced every Wednesday.

Then there's the Raise Minor Character ritual, that can revive people who are long dead. How exciting! This sounds like it would be extremely useful and have tons of applications, and it was super easy to pull off too! It doesn't work on anyone who is actually important though -- only on previously unseen characters from the backstory.

And of course the looks-like-healing-a-split-personality-but-really-turns-a-psychic-into-a-living-bomb ritual. Some Circle cultist must have been having a slow day to come up with that one.

I'm starting to get the sense that if you want to do something in the CoH universe that is normally impossible, just make a ritual for it! Get some fairy dust, a few rocks with carvings on them, throw them in a circle, mutter some backwards Latin and voila! You can have Positron as your butler, Swan as your personal masseuse, cross dimensional barriers, and transmute Tyrant into a house plant.

Okay, just played it hero-side, and I have to agree with the whole "Look, my character is not a moron, so why would I do half this stuff?"

Sure, let's run 3/4ths of the way back through the map to deal with the lone assassin, who is clearly so much of a threat, that I should go face her by myself, and not set up an ambush with Manticore.

And clearly, walking into part of the secret underground society of mages who HATE EVERYONE ON THE SURFACE and PERFORMING THE RITUAL WHAT HAS A SLIGHT CHANCE OF WORKING should never require, I don't know, bringing along some mages and checking out the ritual site?

I mean, obviously, we have to follow this one predetermined path to deal with Sister Psyche. Obviously. It's not like we don't have a city full of super-scientists, magicians, psychics, and general all-around comic plot devices. Cryogenics? Nope. Mental stasis field? Nuh-uh. Magical spell that isn't done by a psychotic cultist? Don't be silly. Clearly, we only have the one path that leads to death and stupidity. Well, stupidity obviously came first, but you get the point.

Honestly, this comes across as the Devs being the only people in the entire comic-book fandom (besides Queseda) who truly liked One More Day. "Oh hey, let's get rid of the one married super-hero couple in the continuity. We can tell much better stories that way."

Oh, and side note. If at least the villain side doesn't have Lord Recluse dropping the mother-{bleep}ing hammer on Wade, I will be very disappointed.

Seeing as idiotball seems to be the new blueside craze, I'd like a clarification of the rules, is it better to win idiotball or to lose, or have you lost just by playing?

As a devices blaster, if warned of an incoming ambush, my character doesn't go to the ambushers, he simply pops hasten and begins laying trips mines at a choke point and ambushes them. If four minutes of trip mines doesn't liquidate an elite boss it's out of his soloable range.

And sending away the world's most powerful non-explody psychic to go with you to deal with an assassin that's after you and after not SP, sheer brilliance, on Wade's part.

Okay so I just did the villain side version of WWD # 6.

Nothing spectacular but there is a bit more story to the villain side of things.

Supposedly Sister Psy. kicked Aurora out of her mind into an Urn (that wasn't there in the hero side version) at the last second before she died.

So as a villain you take down Tystra (? whoever that EB was...) and Aurora takes over that EB's body and is now fully functional and says the above (that before Sis Psy died she kicked AB out of her mind/body to save her (AB)).


So "evil AB" is alive...and is a friend to your villain....