Retaking the Rogue Isles

Chime me in for someone who thinks this is all a really great idea. Making Lord Recluse an actual, credible threat rather than some unfortunate Cobra Commander wanna-be? Hell yes. I've just got one question...

How exactly are the Rogue Arachnos powerful or numerous enough to force Recluse to redistribute his forces so drastically? From what it seems in-game the Rogues are really only able to survive because Recluse just hasn't decided to crush them. Sure they have Warburg's missiles and they've messed with Arachnos a few times on their own initiative, but having the resources to successfully assault Grandville is a whole other story.

Really amazing work, Sam.

Also love the idea of Recluse spreading out his web over other dimensions.

Thank you This was really the only way I could think of for Recluse to expand his power base without raising the "too much explanation necessary" questions of international politics. I've just found that when a plot point starts raising too many questions with too lengthy explanations, it's probably best to pull out and trade plots. Alternate dimensions have the benefit of letting the man expand without having to contest with real-world interference. That doesn't mean alternate dimensions can't be interfered with, but when such a plot does arise, it's because we chose to tell it, rather than because we ran into a plot dead end and conflict was the only way out of the situation.

The funny thing is that the Nemesis has been doing this since the game came out, but it's simply never been explored to any great length. At almost no point is it ever asked where our villains are getting the funds needed to keep such Byzantine, sprawling evil organisations going. For something like the Devouring Earth, that's a stupid question - they have no use for money and all the resources they need are commonly-available dirt, rocks and vegetation. That's why their spread is so dangerous - it can't be stopped by depriving them of resources. But for something like, say, the Council, it should come up exactly how they can fund what must be hundreds if not thousands of bases under the city, employ maybe tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of men, supply them all, feed them all, train them all, manage them all and so forth. "Front companies" get mentioned occasionally, but those never do any real business and so earn no income.

I know that that's kind of an unfair question to ask of an archvillain, since City of Tax Evasion wouldn't be nearly as exciting and a lot of the time you can say they just steal the money. But when it comes to Arachnos, that's a very visible, very large organisation at the head of an entire independent nation. That's an organisation which has MASSIVE upkeep costs even just running on idle, and to me, alternate dimensions are the easiest explanation for this. Yes, they're just one step removed from "a wizard did it" since there's no theoretical limit to the amount an organisation can sprawl across the multiverse and so no real context of how powerful it is, but that CAN be mitigated with a relatively low opportunity cost of secondary explanation. Indeed, part of the "problem" of having a world with context where certain plot points demand certain reactions from certain factions is also a benefit - it gives you a world that's easier to understand or predict. But I still feel the cost of uncertainty in letting Recluse loose on the Multiverse to spar with Nemesis for control of dead-world colonies is worth it

Again, Lord Recluse deserves to be the premier villain in City of Heroes, and he deserves to be a threat greater than any of the others. Perhaps not immediately, I expect the Battalion to catch everyone off guard. But I still want to see Recluse be the biggest threat when all is said and done, and eventually become a threat bigger than them, too. While the heroes fight to save the world, Recluse is racking his brain to find some way to benefit from it all. That's how I'd write him into any "for the greater good" conflict. After all, why not let the fools throw themselves at the danger and buy him enough time to find some way of not just defeating it, but stealing its power, as well? In fact, why not let the Nemesis figure that out and then just beat him to the punch? THAT is the kind of villain I want Recluse to be.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

In order for the villains to be a threat they have to win. What parts of Paragon City do you want to give up? Which heroes should they kill? Xanatos gambits are bull s***. It's just a way for the writers to make you think the villain is winning even when they're still losing just like always.

I like what I'm reading in this thread. The idea of prior and ongoing events stretching Arachnos to the point it starts to collapse under its own disfunctionality is an appealing one. The ideas here could work well for the card-carrying Villains who think they can do one better than Recluse, or even the lovable Rogues who think maybe the @$$hattery should be dialed back a bit.
What I really like is the idea that Lord Recluse would have a plan in place for just such a scenario, to allow himself and his organization breathing space even when (to the rest of the world) it seems Arachnos is imploding. I find it ludicrous to think that Lord Recluse can have his grandest schemes foiled by the very villain he needs to achieve his ultimate end, observe his own organization mired in backstabbing and opportunistic betrayals and never once think, "maybe I should have a plan B".
A shake-up like this is just the thing to breathe new life into reside. While this would be pushing it in terms of feasibility, it would also be a good excuse to give older redside groups a facelift (like the Family). The boys club could use a few "Machine Gun Mollys" in their ranks.

If these ideas get implemented, I might actually have to read the contacts' dialogue again. Lately I've been shifting more towards Heroside, even though I started Villainside, but this'd make me move back for sure.

Bravo, Sam!

Also, as an idea, if Recluse is going to work on controlling existing Incarnates and making them into an army, he might want to do some of his initial experiments in an alternate dimension so that if something goes wrong, he doesn't have to worry too much about clean-up, which could be a substantial drain on his limited resources. All he'd have to do is close the portal to whichever empty dimension he'd used and move on to the next attempt.

It stands to reason that if he is opening portals at random to alternate dimensions, he is going to eventually find one overun by, say, The Battalion. Or a bigger threat.

It also stands to reason that of the infinite parallel dimensions, there is another one where someone like Recluse is looking to colonize alternate dimensions.

So... I've always wanted to see Striga become a co-op zone... well, not co-op so much as co-exist, where heroes and villains both have things to do there, are actively working against one another's goals, but aren't embroiled in PvP and scaring off the PvE crowd who only show up in PvP zones for badges, shivans, and nukes. Any interest in applying your imagination to a Striga revamp? It may not be one of "The Rogue Isles" but it's still in a similar region iirc. Always seemed a shame redside couldn't go there.

I like this thread. Lots of potential here.

And to the poster who suggested that, without Arachnos to keep them at bay, the US would just roll in and knock over the warlords one by one... I don't want to start an RL political flamewar here, but if anything, foreign policy for the last few decades suggests that despotic rulers can do anything they like to their subjects until and unless they actually present a clear and present danger to the US, or have something the US wants. That's when the bombing starts and the tanks roll in. Take away the threat and/or ability of Recluse to make strikes (nuclear or otherwise) against the mainland, and I submit that most of the US political establishment - minus a few bleeding hearts and/or politicians trying to win votes and money from same - would be quite content to let the people of the Etoiles suffer and rot in squalor. Yes, even on our own doorstep. Hooray for realpolitik.

I like this so far. Some things i would add, in no particular order:

- Rogue Arachnos are lead by Blitz. He went "missing" after SSA1 - Malta "rescued" him and made a deal. They give some of their tech to provide Warburg forces an edge, which explains how they could push to GV. In return Malta keep their lab/factory in Warburg and can use it to do anything that would normally be too hard to hide - giant robots, crazy experiments, maybe Battle Maidens training camp?

- Villains on Mercy aren't Destined Ones. They are simply villainous individuals that the isolated Arachnos forces on Mercy recruit to fight Longbow. And raid(s) on Galaxy were just to grab everything and everyone not nailed down. It is only in Grandville that the Destined One plot starts.

- Move VEAT arcs to Ouro. No big loss. Give them new 1-10 arcs that are basically "foot soldiers going rogue to make it big". By the time they get to 40, they have enough personal power that Arachnos chooses to cooperate. Change to level 50 arc to a Mayhem in Atlas with some grey conning Hero NPCs to beat up and the main objective of toppling Atlas' statue as proof of being bad-***.

- Sirens Call - with Statesman gone Recluse (and therefore Arachnos) are less interested in Paragon City specifically. So they pull back from fighting and maintain their base as an open door that any villain may use - basically to grief the hero population. Change Arachnos in hotspots and repeatables to random villain groups, Longbow stay as is.

- Atlas - instead of invading to conquer, Arachnos are in Atlas to try to "thin out" the hero population. Just a text change, really.

- Bloody Bay, Faultline - no change. The PCM and knowledge of the Coming Storm are valuable enough to keep fighting for.

- In addition to the inter dimensional stuff already noted, Arachnos are also recruiting Praetorians. Specifically, former Loyalists with too much blood on their hands. New mobs - Arachnos with IDF rocket/gun backpacks. In the future issues, some new contacts with arcs.

- Remove Viridian from Praetoria->Rogue Isles portal mission. Or have him make an offer the player character refuses (or tentatively accepts?).

- STF (MLTF?) - as was suggested, Web is already functioning at a low power. But Ms Liberty sends heroes to attack anyway because that is how she rolls. And it is the hero attack(s) that make Recluse turn Web up to 11.