A thought: Loyalist Male Psychics in Praetoria


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
Only when they've been corrupted by evil men
So you're saying they're stupid and easily influenced too. Okay.


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I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

That aside, it seems that there's a bias in Praetoria. Thiery and Psimon are prominent male Psychics, as well as a number of others. 'Mother' does seem to have a bias, especially if you look at First Ward.

Been running that arc recently with my 'native' Praetorians, and have seen quite a few male Awakened, and I think I can say with some authority that there are male psychics in addition to the Syndicate that exist that just don't fit within "Mother's" scope of usefulness, for whatever reason. (though some have been given here).


"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lycantropus View Post
So you're saying they're stupid and easily influenced too. Okay.
I think that's it's more likely that they're just a bit too trusting


@Golden Girl

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
I think that's it's more likely that they're just a bit too trusting
Stupid psychics that don't bother to verify. Check. Never mind that the whole project is overseen by an insecure, unstable, woman.


"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by cursedsorcerer View Post
In Praetoria, it seems, every (or almost every) female psychic who doesn't join the Syndicate or Resistance is forced to become a Seer. What I want to know is, what happens to male psychics. I don't think there are any male Seers, so would they just join Powers Division?
There are plenty of male seers, but they aren't the public face of the organization, so they're left to operate from the home office where no one can see them.


 

Posted

Not that I'm not sexist. Quite the opposite. Free will, and intellegence, go both ways.


"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
Only when they've been corrupted by evil men

Mother Mayhem's current corruption is almost entirely herself, and in fact, can be said to have corrupted Tyrant even more, offering an easier and far more effective means at policing the populace's minds than propaganda ever could. Though in her defense, she was raised and trained to be a psychic soldier to fight the Hamidon, but that was almost assuredly done through a team of teachers and trainers of both genders.


Countess Crey, her corruption is her own greed and lust for power.

And Primal Vanessa De Vore, she's straight up evil, yet her only corruption is herself and the mind of Giovanna Scaldi, also a self corrupted woman.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
The technical answer is that male brains work in a different way, so she might not be able to link up with them so easily to feed on their psychic energy.

The more likely answer is that she's just not into boys.
My pet theory is that whatever psychic surgery Mother Mayhem is performing on her seers to make them compliant, has a higher tendency to 'break' male psychics to the point of making them useless for the seer program. Which would suggest why there appears to be an even split between male and female among the broken psychics in First Ward.

Also, we know MM feeds off psychic energy. Maybe she just think male psychics taste better. Omnomnom!


Also, my fingers keep wanting to refer to them as Psykers


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lycantropus View Post
That aside, it seems that there's a bias in Praetoria.
There certainly is with the loyalists - apart from a couple of Praetors, the dictatorship is pretty much a boys only club - the PPD are all male, the IDF are all male, the Olympian Guard are are all male, and the Seers are all slaves - even Diabolique was enslaved by Tyrant.
And apart from IVy, none of the Victorias have even been programmed to present a female personality.


@Golden Girl

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Justice_Reaper View Post
And Primal Vanessa De Vore, she's straight up evil, yet her only corruption is herself and the mind of Giovanna Scaldi, also a self corrupted woman.
I'd argue that. Vanessa was seduced into evil by Giovanna, and the Rikti Invasion that prompted her to give herself to the mask.

Like this; The rest was a result of the corruption and decadence that followed.


"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
There certainly is with the loyalists - apart from a couple of Praetors, the dictatorship is pretty much a boys only club - the PPD are all male, the IDF are all male, the Olympian Guard are are all male, and the Seers are all slaves - even Diabolique was enslaved by Tyrant.
And apart from IVy, none of the Victorias have even been programmed to present a female personality.
Ivy's a male ego trip, I'll give you that. As far as Nuron's concerned, she's still making his turkey pot pie by being convinced by the Loyalists she can actually work in the kitchen at the end of his arc. Also, Nightstar has a female personality.

As for the rest of it, the thing is, when you take a 'power fantasy' to the extreme the Praetors and Emperor Cole have, it loses relevance in terms of gender. The 'Metahumans' are in control, and anything less then them are the tools. if it were a 'boys only' club Anti-Matter would have been involved. This is beyond that. Also, see Powers Division.

Trying to make it some 'gender club' at this point makes it lose relevance, especially since the leader of the Psychic front is female.

Gender doesn't play a part during the trials, it's all politics, and keeping Cole in power. And if gender plays a role, you can bet Emperor Cole counted that as an issue in keeping him in power with the support of whatever Praetor was left at the end of any particular trial, as opposed to it being a 'boy's club'.


"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
the dictatorship is pretty much a boys only club - the PPD are all male
C'mon. Calling Paragon City a dictatorship is a bit harsh, even for you!


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=][=

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
It balances out though - so while woman have more joined up brains and can withstand pain better than men, men are generally taller, faster and stronger than women.
That is provably wrong. Men have a much higher pain threshold.


 

Posted

I'm pretty sure it's the same reason all NPCs are gender limited; resources and concept design.

We know that Mu have an equal chance to be male or female. Yet there are only male models. Banes and Widows at elast are split into those two corps, so that's a sort of balance. There would be female psykers in the PPD too, but they are all male. And we see male Seers in FW yet none in the rest of Praetoria or the 'Seers' group.

Simple reason; the concept designs were for female/male for each group, and the Devs stated before on gender equal groups that the reason there were hardly any was because 'they wanted more groups rather than a few with equal gender portions, since they could only do one or the other'.

It's that simple. You'r reading too much into it. There ARE male loyalist psykers in Praetoria. They just don't have in-game models. Much like there would be female Hellion, Skull and Outcast members, more female goons in the Council and Fifth Column (who cares what gender you are, so long as you're fascist and know how to goose-step?) etc etc.


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Posted

Techbot has probably hit on the source of the visual disparities noted in this thread. Especially since the Devs have explained that reasoning on the record before. We've also seen that the Devs are willing to add more of the missing gender when they revisit groups, so long as there's no in lore exclusions going on(like with the Knives).

Also grats Techbot you finally called them Psykers.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
I'm pretty sure it's the same reason all NPCs are gender limited; resources and concept design.

We know that Mu have an equal chance to be male or female. Yet there are only male models. Banes and Widows at elast are split into those two corps, so that's a sort of balance. There would be female psykers in the PPD too, but they are all male. And we see male Seers in FW yet none in the rest of Praetoria or the 'Seers' group.

Simple reason; the concept designs were for female/male for each group, and the Devs stated before on gender equal groups that the reason there were hardly any was because 'they wanted more groups rather than a few with equal gender portions, since they could only do one or the other'.

It's that simple. You'r reading too much into it. There ARE male loyalist psykers in Praetoria. They just don't have in-game models. Much like there would be female Hellion, Skull and Outcast members, more female goons in the Council and Fifth Column (who cares what gender you are, so long as you're fascist and know how to goose-step?) etc etc.
Except that it's not that simple for the seers.
It's explicitly stated at points that the seers are all female. Yes, there are loyalist male psychics, but they don't ever end up as one of the seers that "protect" Pretoria, and that's intentional.


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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
There are plenty of male seers, but they aren't the public face of the organization, so they're left to operate from the home office where no one can see them.
That makes me picture them floating in front of computers, typing with their minds.

I know the *reason* for why the gender disparity is because it probably wasn't planned in the character model stage, but I do like this speculation (well, the parts that aren't weird pseudo-science).

I'm just glad they let me make a male widow for Arachnos. I got another guy who's an escapee from the seer program for a Praetorian too.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazey View Post
Except that it's not that simple for the seers.
It's explicitly stated at points that the seers are all female. Yes, there are loyalist male psychics, but they don't ever end up as one of the seers that "protect" Pretoria, and that's intentional.
But we see those male psychics they tried to turn into seers and who failed the program, in First Ward. So it might be intentional, but then what's up with the male Awakened?

Of course, it's possible that whoever wrote the story for First Ward didn't realize there was such an intention. It wouldn't be the first part of the story in Going Rogue to get blatantly ignored.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
We know that Mu have an equal chance to be male or female. Yet there are only male models.
Under all those binds, helmets, and huge shoulder pads, who can even tell?


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Posted

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Originally Posted by FlashToo View Post
Under all those binds, helmets, and huge shoulder pads, who can even tell?
This is a comicbook game - female Mu would have no binding on their midriff, and some kind of cleavage window in the bindings on their upper bodies


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Slaunyeh View Post
It wouldn't be the first part of the story in Going Rogue to get blatantly ignored.
Got any examples to back that up? Or do you just mean something like Katie Douglas in FW ignoring the earlier morality choice with her?


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
This is a comicbook game - female Mu would have no binding on their midriff, and some kind of cleavage window in the bindings on their upper bodies
Point taken.


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