Heartsick (*SPOILERS FOR BELLADONNA VETRANO*)

Then what you have is a very narrow and precise definition of what a Moral Event Horizon is. Scirocco is a terrorist despite mitigating circumstances, but Manticore has the free will to choose but gets a free pass.

Face it. You don't believe in Face Heel Turns because your idea of when someone goes over the Moral Event Horizon is very, VERY limited. You seem to believe that "once a villain, always a villain." And you have a zero tolerance policy on the idea of redemption.

Not to mention comparing Cole to Hitler and Nazi Germany is punching the Godwin's Law button and mashing it as hard as you can.

Well good.

It's difficult not to though, when the loyalist dictatorship has been set up to resemble them in several ways.

You're right, but the idea is NOT to go for the easy way and just say "lol Cole = Hitler", but that's obviously NOT the case.

As I recall, Hitler wasn't the sole super-powered being capable to beating the Hamidon to a draw and had to make a truce just to keep all of humanity from going extinct.

That is a very interesting insight.

Just wish that were clear in game.

This argument won't die because you keep messing your analogies. The role of these "true monsters of history" should be assigned to Hamidon, not Cole. Cole was just the defeated general forced into unconditional surrender and tasked to enforce whatever unfair terms Hami came up with, even if it meant oppressing his people - the alternative was the complete and utter anhilihation of the human race.

If you're talking about world history, go refresh your memory on what the romans did to tribes that refused to surrender. Go ask the japanese if they'd rather have their cities nuked one by one or accept whatever terms the allies might come up with in the future. Liberty, civil rights, suffragism, free speech, all these things we now take for granted were earned through force of arms, they're priviledges of more civilized times that can (and often do) get swept away when someone stronger comes along and prevents them from being upheld.

You forgot to mention he also had a very big gun pointed to his head, one that had just wiped out 90% of the human race and was (as far as Cole knew) unstoppable. Any leader forced to accept unconditional surrender only gets two choices, bend over or watch his people die. Cole chose the former.

There are countless examples of decisions being made in Paragon City, both local and federal, strictly to benefit criminal organizations and profiteers instead of serving the best interests of its people. Unlike in Praetoria, however, no one has a gun to our leaders' heads, it's just plain old corruption at its best. Authority abuse to prevent impending destruction? Regrettable, but I can accept it to a point. Authority abuse for profit? Much less acceptable.

I'll direct you to the trial of Gaius Baltar from the Battlestar Galactica series, almost a carbon copy of what's happening in Praetoria. If you've never seen it, a race of evil machines called the Cylons had just nuked 12 billion humans, and the 40.000 or so survivors elected Gaius Baltar as their president. Eventually the Cylons caught up with the human survivors, and Baltar was tasked with making sure no one misbehaved or they would nuke them as well, which he did through ruthless oppression and government sponsored murder. Brought to trial to answer for his crimes, once all the spite and righteous indignation was over, the jury was forced to conclude that any sane man in Baltar's position would have prioritized the exact same thing in that impossible situation - survival.

P.S. The question I would now pose is why did Cole fail to learn that the Primals had managed to defeat their own version of Hamidon?

It wouldn't matter to him - he wasn't interested in an alliance, as that'd mean him losing his grip on the Praetorians - he only wanted war and conquest, not help.
Tyrant was only interested in power and control.

In your opinion.

No - in his own words - he despises humanity.

Please site examples.

He's too dangerous. Even if he's completely lost his powers -- which does not appear to be the case -- the first thing he'd do if he ever got free is try regain them or get new ones and start the whole thing over again. He'd be another Darrin Wade in the making.

I should think that would be a good thing.

Scirocco was a terrorist before he got his hands on Serafina's trove. Manticore used a lethal weapon against a known serial killer who arguably could not have been subdued or contained, and it didn't work anyway which just hammered home his point. Nor would I have given him a "free pass": if it had been my call I'd have him investigated by a grand jury and if indicted, tried.

First off, it's Heel Face Turns. Face Heel Turns happen all the time, sadly. Secondly, there are plenty of cases in which I'd accept that someone has learned his lesson and deserves a second chance. There are a lot of things a person can break, physically and conceptually, that can be replaced. Human lives aren't one of them, though, especially when taken deliberately and in cold blood and even moreso when done repeatedly.

In a discussion of totalitarian states and fascist leaders it would be more unusual if the Nazis and Hitler did not come up.

He thought he was. That's the point. All these guys think that. It's the central theme of fascism: all of the instruments of society are corrupt, the common citizen is at the mercy of criminals and subversives and the only way out is for the Strong Man to ignore the law and all reasonable principles of morality, take charge and use whatever means are necessary to restore order. The lead singer and musicians change but the song remains the same. Tyrant had the advantage of a physical boogeyman but it is not at all clear that Praetoria's only hope of survival was to hand him absolute power over the worlds' govenments and it is certainly not clear that any of Tyrant's policies following the "truce" were necessary or even effective.

Why not both?

Completely, utterly false. Hamidon didn't dictate terms. It just gave Tyrant a second chance to show humanity wasn't worth destroying. Instead he showed that it was. Hamidon wasn't standing behind Tyrant saying "all right, now you're going to build a literal thought police...that guy's teaching real history, kill his family, that should shut him up...now, here's the formula for the mind control drugs to put in the water...." All of the totalitarianism, all the war crimes, that was all Tyrant's doing. He chose not to tell the truth about his "victory". He chose to build a society based on lies. He chose to exercise absolute power instead of democracy. He did all of these things because, again, he was a coward who was afraid of the human race.

He was responsible for having that gun pointed at his head. He deliberately allowed the Devouring Earth to destroy much of society so he could control what was left. The prior society shares the blame too, of course. They panicked and handed power over to a madman long before exhausting their options. (That's assuming the whole "Tyrant was given power" story has any truth in it. It looks confabulated to me. It strongly resembles the bit where Marc Antony offered Julius Caesar a crown just so he could refuse it, only with the ending flipped.)

Name them. Cite sources.

It was nothing like what happened in Praetoria. Yes, I watched it. Baltar wasn't charged with maintaining order in post-Cylon New Caprica. He had no power at all. He was a figurehead. Tyrant was not Hamidon's figurehead; he was in charge. He had all the power. Baltar was not acquitted at his trial because the court agreed he "had no choice"; he was acquitted because Apollo successfully pointed out that he was being made a scapegoat.

Southern United Manufacturing Company

A major Paragon City corporation in the 1920s, Southern United once controlled most of the Steel Canyon district. The company used coercion, blackmail, and numerous other immoral tactics to gain a stranglehold on the city. It also openly supported Paragon City’s corrupt mayor, “Spanky” Rabinowitz . Statesman eventually discovered that Southern United was actually a front for the villain known as Nemesis, who was subsequently defeated by Statesman and local law enforcement. Although Nemesis escaped capture, it’s believed that Southern United was dissolved after his disappearance.

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Might For Right Act

Inscription (413, 8, 890), Galaxy City

In 1967, these streets were filled with protestors railing against the Might For Right Act. The country had united behind the cause of three African-American heroes, who claimed that the CIA was discriminating against minorities by targeting them for conscription.

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Project: World Wide Red (49-50)
Souvenir - Crimson

The thanks of the World

(...) Acting quickly. you were able to find Dr. Lamarr at the Malta base where she was being forced to work on Project: Wildflower. She explained that Wildflower was a perversion of her own work. a symbiotic invisible nanotechnology-based ecosystem that Malta wanted reprogrammed to kill on their command. If released. it could infect the entire world. invisibly placing it under Malta control. Their first strike would be to kill thousands of heroes. yourself included! As you rushed to the site where Malta was letting the nanites multiply before releasing them. Malta unleashed their Kronos Titan! Undaunted. you made it to the nanite factory and reset all of the nanites to break themselves down. nipping Project: Wildflower in the bud.

(...) You also found out that Director 17. the head of World Wide Red. was in the city and that his cover identity was within the CIA.

(...) Crimson used his ex-CIA contact Melvin Langley to learn the identity of Director 17. and when that contact was captured. you went in and rescued him. Melvin told you that Director 17 was none other than Jack Firenze, the head of the CIA's China Bureau.

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As Issen said, define where the Moral Event Horizon is. As far as I can tell, Scirocco at the very least has not crossed it. Cole is possibly arguable.

Granted, Praetorian Hamidon is evidently MUCH more powerful than Primal Hamidon (Primal Hamidon can, and has, been defeated many times before any of us became Incarnates.)

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with those - you seem to have given 3 examples that were dealt with by heroes and are no longer a problem - that's the way the game works.
Like Roy Cooling's arc, where we take down some rogue PPD, or the various Tip missions where we arrest vigilantes - whenever we learn about criminal activity by people in positions of power, we deal with it - which is what's been happening in the Praetorian war - the loyalists have now been dealt with, and can't harm the people anymore.

Except when someone starts a new character and then it happens all over again.

That's the way MMOs work
Meta-story-wise, the loyalists are finished - all new Incarnate content will be built on that as one of the basic truths of the meta-story - just like Statesman is now dead, even if players never play "Who Will Die".
That's one of the many things that's so awesome about Praetoria - they've created a huge story arc that actually has a permanent resolution - it's not like defeating Recluse and the patrons on the STF, but he's still in power and shows up with the patrons again in newer content, or defeating Reichsman in the KTF and he pops up again afterwards in DA - this defeat of the loyalist menace is final - the dictatorship is destroyed, and the AVs are either dead or captured - it's just awesome.

Except the STF wasn't about removing Recluse from power, it was about stopping his plot to empower himself through the Web. And Dark Astoria acknowledged that Reichsman had his *** kicked in the KTF/BSF and that he could barely hold a candle to your character in terms of power now. Oh, and the Praetorian zones under Tyrant's rule are still in the game.

Exactly - the outcomes were left vague so that they could return for further naughtiness in the classic comicbook style - while the defeat of the loyalists has been written to end their threat to the multiverse permanently.

Except when someone starts a new character, then the Praetorian threat is fresh all over again.

But not at the cutting edge of the developing meta-story

The Incanrate Trials and storyline are the "now" of the meta-storyline - the newest Trial is always the most up to date situation in the game world - even more than the SSAs, the Incarnate system is like a comicbook, where we follow multiple unfolding stories, characters and events as part of a rolling open-ended storyline.

Amusing, since that was specifically what the SSAs were supposed to be. I highly doubt this assessment, as you should notice the SSAs specifically saw the removal of Statesman and Sister Psyche from the game, whereas the iTrials have done no such thing concerning Emperor Cole and the Praetors.

The SSAs work to a slightly different timeline, while the non-SSA and non-Incarnate content work to a 3rd timeline.
For example, the Penny Yin TF level range starts and ends before the SSA death of Sister Psyche and introduction of Penny as a hero.
The 1-50 timeline mostly follows a level = time passong system - the SSAs follow their own version of levels = time, but it's detatched from the 1-50 system - and the Incarnate storyline follows its own timeline, with the progress of time being measured more by content updates than level shifts.