Author Topic: Headcanons and realizations  (Read 3548 times)

Sakura Tenshi

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Headcanons and realizations
« on: January 26, 2018, 03:50:14 PM »
What are some realizations you've had about the game's universe since it's closing.

One recently came to me when a friend of mine and I were doing some RP writing set in City of for the hell of it and I finally realized why Malta, a fairly nononsense cape-busting operator group would have something as out-there as teleporting, two-pistol cowboys in their ranks: Because Malta gunslingers are effectively rapid-response counter shock-troopers. While every other operative might need a second to ready their equipment and pull out their rifle, a gunslinger just fights with their pistols, teleports into range with any metahuman and fills them with lead, AP rounds, and specialized ammo payloads in rapid succession. A full attack chain from a malta gunslinger would, in-universe terms, be the effect of throwing a flurry of jabs to test a metahuman's defenses, then teleport back to report observed abilities.

Or report another body to dispose.

Combine that with how metahumans tend to have knacks for vanishing and appearing from nowhere, having people expressly trained to react equally fast or faster would be vital to the success of an operation.

AlphaFerret

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2018, 05:49:00 PM »
That, or Malta are just jerks....

Castegyre

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2018, 06:12:58 PM »
I spent too many years running games for people. On some level I always tend to see enemy groups as either the collection of abilities needed to counter the hero(s) or the collection of abilities the hero(s) is not prepared to counter. It detracts from the mystery and immersion, but it does make beating content easier.

huang3721

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2018, 11:42:13 PM »
Yes, those villains are jerks. Why bother sending troops or armored units whenever their surveillance devices spot incoming intruders? Teleport troops/weapons/hardware out to safety, then send in a warhead/magical doohickey to obliterate/neutralize those pesky intruders. They should automate this process and complete it in less than 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, such scenario will negatively impact our gameplay.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 01:05:02 AM by huang3721 »
Has it been three years already? Oh wait.. four, no no, five?

Sakura Tenshi

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2018, 05:06:59 PM »
Yes, those villains are jerks. Why bother sending troops or armored units whenever their surveillance devices spot incoming intruders? Teleport troops/weapons/hardware out to safety, then send in a warhead/magical doohickey to obliterate/neutralize those pesky intruders. They should automate this process and complete it in less than 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, such scenario will negatively impact our gameplay.

Equipment takes time to be broken down, teleportation anomalies might be detectable and worse: traceable, especially assuming Malta is pulling Manticore's trick and piggybacking off the medical relay network (notice Skyraiders need those huge packs to do the same thing and Tsoo sorcerers are expressly magical), there may be caps in how much mass can be transported at once (notice also all enemies that teleport are only human sized), potential interference between equipment and teleportation tech (notice only gunslingers teleport and have the least gear of any malta operative, and sappers rely on a jetpack), and of course; the same reason we can't actually just nuke other countries and dronestrike them into submission and declare victory: you don't win crap until you have people with their feet on the ground.

There's really a lot of reasons Malta or anyone bothers with actual personal appearances with everything else available in the CoH-verse.

huang3721

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2018, 02:45:58 PM »
I was thinking about short-range teleport inside a base. Somebody in control room or The Gunslinger himself was teleporting things onto or preferably into our intrepid hero when he was spotted. They should teleport those bullets into the target rather than teleporting someone to deliver them. I believe it is faster and safer that way.

Therefore I conclude that the Malta base commander is a jerk because he unnecessarily risks his own man.
Has it been three years already? Oh wait.. four, no no, five?

primeknight

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2018, 12:36:01 AM »
I was thinking about short-range teleport inside a base. Somebody in control room or The Gunslinger himself was teleporting things onto or preferably into our intrepid hero when he was spotted. They should teleport those bullets into the target rather than teleporting someone to deliver them. I believe it is faster and safer that way.

Therefore I conclude that the Malta base commander is a jerk because he unnecessarily risks his own man.
/SR Scrappers dodge explosions, bullets, gunslingers, and sappers.   A good Force Field will do the same
And a good confuse on Malta will disable their attacks.  A good tank would just laugh.  There were several self-rezing powers.
And then there were incarnates.

It wasn't so easy to try for a one-shot on supers.  Malta had their job cut out for them.

Sakura Tenshi

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2018, 04:49:17 AM »
and now for a few other headcanons (admittedly ones I've posted in the City of's TV Tropes WMG page) -

Gilgamesh was the first incarnate: pretty much what it says; Gilgamesh, the greak god king of Uruk was already a formidable demi-god when he drank from the Well and became 'Two-parts god, one part man'. Despite his strong connection to the Well of Furies though, it could do nothing to actually control him directly, Gilgamesh was just too absurdly strong. So it created Enkidu from it's own essence to match Gilgamesh and, whoopsie number twosie, Gilgamesh's charisma won Enkidu over and convinced Enkidu to join Gil's supergroup. So the Well takes the form of Ishtar to seduce Gilgamesh directly. Still failed. Finally the Well unleashes the Bull of Heaven, and when that failed, killed Enkidu, and taking advantage of a vulnerable moment, withdrew it's powerful Gilgamesh, leaving him to die as a mortal man.

Some jokes that aren't actually serious headcanons -

The Well of Furies is POWER THIRST: Behold Emperor Cole, he started to run so fast Mother Nature (or rather Hamidon) told him to "SLOOOOOOOOW DOOOOWN" and Cole flipped Hamidon off and kicked Hamidon in the face with his INCARNATE LEGS. Meanwhile, Statesman is always so high strung because he's UNCOMFORTABLY ENERGETIC! Recluse, Reichsman, and Tyrant avoid this by inventing the sports WORLD DOMINATING and MASS OPPRESSING because they're TOO ENERGETIC FOR NORMAL SPORTS!

Alternatively...

The Well of Furies is The Root of the World from Kinoko Nasu's TYPE-MOON-verse: Heroes bargain to gain great power and legendary fame and become forces contained within the Well, possibly summoned by exterior forces or the world itself in times of need. Ready for your male Scrapper to appear in Fate/Grand Order with their gender inexplicably changed? How about a Lore that lets you summon Arturia Saber?

Lycantropus

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2018, 11:26:36 AM »
I don't care what Positron said in that one AMA. Ashley McKnight and Ace McKnight are cousins. There is NO WAY there are two people with that particular name in the City and they're NOT somehow related. It's just bad writing otherwise... Plus it's part of one of my character's back-story so...

I also still believe that Sister Psyche was not killed by Manticore. Mind riding to survive is like one of her signature powers. Manticore also knows she's still 'out there' because of the bond they share, and that's why he did it. She *allowed* herself to be pulled into Wade so she could sabotage him from the 'inside' so to speak. That's why our heroes were able to beat him as Rula-Wade... she was forcing him to pull his punches without realizing it (because at the end of the day, he was still just a chump). I could accept if doing that killed her when we beat Rula-Wade, but we all know comic book heroes. Manticore is still just stoically waiting for her to give him a sign...

I also think Penelope Yin became a member of the Freedom Phalanx because she wanted to be one really Really REALLY bad. She's an untrained psychic that may be the most powerful one ever (maybe even stronger than Sister Psyche, so it's said)- then she's given an amplifier to boost her powers and help her control them better... yeah. It would also explain how the rest of the group seemed to make poor decisions without them realizing it (they were all being swayed by a young, eager, well-intentioned super-psychic).

Anyway, that's some of my head-canon, and I'm sticking to it. *nods*

*puts away the notebook of observations I'd made over the years... avoids asking meta-questions why Impervium is the strongest metal in the known universe, but its IO caps at 40 with 'meh' bonuses, while Titanium Coating goes all the way to 50- also with 'meh' bonuses)*

Lyc~

Sakura Tenshi

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Re: Headcanons and realizations
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2018, 08:25:40 AM »
I also think Penelope Yin became a member of the Freedom Phalanx because she wanted to be one really Really REALLY bad. She's an untrained psychic that may be the most powerful one ever (maybe even stronger than Sister Psyche, so it's said)- then she's given an amplifier to boost her powers and help her control them better... yeah. It would also explain how the rest of the group seemed to make poor decisions without them realizing it (they were all being swayed by a young, eager, well-intentioned super-psychic).

Not to shoot down other people's headcanons, but let's look at the situation the Freedom Phalanx was in when they recruited Penny:
1. They just lost not one, but two of their founding members, their only incarnate, and their outright leader. Sister Psyche was surely not just close with Manticore, but all of the FP because she likely provided some level of psychological comfort to them as a psychic. Then there's the fact that Statesman was old enough to have been around when most of the FP were children, they grew up idolizing him, their parents idolized him, he probably seemed like an unchanging feature in an uncertain world. And then he was gone.

2. Around the time Statesman was killed, the Praetorian war was still in full swing, so the FP were dealing with the knowledge that their own counterpart to Tyrant was now missing, and the FP were having trouble fighting off the regular Praetors and even IDF foot soldiers who were getting jacked up on Incarnate BS powers from nowhere. Which brings me to point three...

3. Incarnates were popping up left and right now, and the FP was losing relevance with shifting paradigms even before Statesman's death, they likely felt people were losing faith in them and they were being left behind and becoming obsolete whereas Arachnos, while honestly only as strong as the FP had a greater overall staying power and ability to project itself because Arachnos is a national army of Etoile, Recluse isn't just himself, the four patrons, plus underlings. Recluse has arbiters, VTOL gunships, dozens of fortresses and hidden bases, super weapons, and more at his disposal. The FP was, when you think of it, a pretty humble super group. (Compared, to, say, even some player groups)

4. Psychic threats are extremely common in the City of universe, the FP had lost their prime psychic and needed someone to pick up the old slack and Numina sure wasn't going to do it. So who did they decide to grab? The girl who was so strong when they needed a psychic to manipulate reality itself with the psychochronometron so the rules it operated on no longer worked they immediately overlooked Sister Psyche or anyone else, they looked to Penny.

5. Penny is powerful, insanely powerful, nigh incarnate levels of power as psychics go. And also young and untested. The Freedom Phalanx had probably opted to recruit her in hopes of mentoring her and, if nothing else, serve as a kill-switch if her psychic powers went novas like Sister Psyche's nearly did.

Addendeum: based on your headcanon sister psyche was mind riding in her husband's head, you can bet someone who wasn't a psychic themselves wouldn't be thinking too clear dealing with two minds in one head.

So, in summary: there's a lot of reasons the FP would be acting weird, edgy, and frustrated and why they would pick Penelope Yin as a member.

Plus, the FP was probably getting looked at by the Feds due to them having a long history of only Caucasian members and spending a majority of their time focused on dismantling an organization run by an ethnically diverse group.

I mean Arachnos itself originated as Italian fascists, Imad Malik, Ernesto Rodriguez, Belladonna Vetrano, Tamura Shirai, Irena Rudenko, and Paolo Marino with only Gideon Ray, Kelli Forston, and Stefan Richter seeming the odd ones out. Also, man it's weird to list those off after knowing them by their villain names. Just imagine how it would sound if the Arachnos inner circle addressed one another mostly by their real names.