A worrying realization from Prometheus..(spoilerish)

So yesterday I finally went to chat with Prometheus since the release of DA and he had a ton of new stuff to tell me. Among the bits and bots about the incarnates, Furies, Kheldians and the Well, he mentions the ascension process and explains to you how it works and what one gains through it. Here is a bit of text relating to it:

"Those who have become like a 'well' have the ability to create whole worlds out of their very thoughts. They can make dimensions of their own design, setting the rules by which their world will exist. They can create entities to serve them, or isolate themselves in a peaceful silence. In this way, they are freer than the 'wells' which are linked to a species, for their continued existence is dependent only on themselves, not the survival of the species. This makes them quite dangerous, and is the reason why my organization watches all attempts to 'ascend' in this way closely."

Bolded text being what caught my eye, then right after that, he tells you of Rularuu, how he is one such ascended being and lets slip another little fact I thought interesting:

"Rularuu is not even the only such entity with which you are acquainted."

I mentioned it to a few friends as I was going through the text and we got thinking. Who else in the game could be a Rularuu-esque god? Perhaps someone you ran into once, or who keeps popping up in the story? Someone who can create worlds and dimensions ran by their own rules...and then w came up with possible candidates.

DJ Zero and the Television

Zero is said to have created a pocket dimension by himself to house his club, floating weightlessly in nothing and ruled by his will (there is absolutely no fighting allowed, he makes sure of it, and there is no fall damage anywhere in the zone). It would seem odd that with all his power this is all he would do, but during the Valentines event it seems like there's much more to him than just owning a club since he even attunes you to be able to find misplaced letters and gifts.

We aren't really ever told what the Television is or how it works, but there are many missions involving entering it's fictional worlds and helping it out. It may seem odd that if that's correct, the Television would need any help from you, but it may just be toying with you or testing your skills, and the same could apply to DJ Zero with the seemingly constant assaults from Snaptooth.

Prometheus also mentions that for one to ascend, they would take a large portion of their race's Force Potential with them, weakening the others. But we don't even know what exactly Television is, so I can't tell how that would work for it. Zero could just as likely simply be an alien or have ascended much earlier before any of the incarnate business took place and just hangs around to watch and keep the party going.

Of course, all that could just be random blabber and turn out completely incorrect, but it's still something to think about and it would be interesting if it was so and how those two would relate to the whole upcoming conflict with the Battalion.

At any rate, thanks for attention

TV is nothing without archnemisis Radio. Could they both be vying for the same type of power? Prometheus states that whoever ascends takes a huge chunk of a races power with them.

Both TV and Radio rely on humanity partaking in their world to gain power..... Kind of like taking handouts to ascend....

Essentially, this was the devs continued retconning and downsizing of what it means to be an Incarnate, which is exactly what I expected when they announced the Incarnate system.

Incarnates were said to have the power of the gods, rare beings of awesome might. That is how it was understood and established long before the Incarnate system was added to the game.

Now, Incarnates mean nothing. There's hundreds of them walking around Atlas Park with names like 'Healz1992'. Statesman was said to have the power Zeus, a god. But as we've seen, he was hardly godlike, neither are player Incarnates.

The beings with true godlike power are the Ascended, like Mot and Rularuu.

Incarnates are at best, weak demigods, able to be challenged by any random martial artist shmuck with 'Soul Ink' or Praetorian citizen armed with stones. We're not gods. We can't even fight gods directly. Mot is a god and we essentially had to cheat to win against him, and at best all we did was contain him temporarily.

The Incarnate system so cheapened what it meant to be an Incarnate they had to invent a whole other tier above them to be the actual gods; the Ascended. And woe be it anyone who aspires to ascend, because Prometheus threatens to send his invisible ninja death squads after you if you ever stop being his lapdog and running his little trials for tiny scraps of power.

So, congratulations. We graduated from being the Phalanx and Recluse's lackeys to being doing what Prometheus tells us and being threatened by him, civilian thrown rocks and enemies we used to solo but can now fight off you and 23 other 'demigods'. Oh, and you get to feel a little more insignificant because the actual cosmic movers and shakers are the Ascended.

Nice job devs. Way to move that goalpost.



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What about the midnight club and Black Swan. Marie Jenkins says this one thing in her new arc

It's not the rocks that kill you. It's the Well-juiced incarnate-nuking telepathist debuff that kills you.

This isn't news, it isn't the rocks. If you kill the telepathists, the rocks can't kill you. If you leave the telepathists out there, you eat what you sew and deal with it. Seriously, let it go, your god peen is not being stomped on maliciously when you don't do what it takes to take it out from under the damned boot. You are doing it to yourself.

"Those who have become like a 'well' have the ability to create whole worlds out of their very thoughts. They can make dimensions of their own design, setting the rules by which their world will exist. They can create entities to serve them, or isolate themselves in a peaceful silence. In this way, they are freer than the 'wells' which are linked to a species, for their continued existence is dependent only on themselves, not the survival of the species. This makes them quite dangerous, and is the reason why my organization watches all attempts to 'ascend' in this way closely."

Funny this sounds alot like Amberites attuned to the pattern in Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_of_Amber

I actually forgot it says "PACIFIED". I was talking about the fact that there's a power icon in your status tray that tells you what the effect does (in short form) when you hover over it.

I think it's getting a bit off topic by now...

I don't mind there being more power to achieve. The Devs simply need to remember scale. Hit-points do not an Incarnate make, although having my Defender take out two elite bosses is somewhat gratifying.