FloatingFatMan

Burned Ice, a young girl of 14 and a recent addition to the Unity Vigil, boarded the craft. Clad in her usual white armoured leotard with blue shoulder flashes and sleeves, and her blue and red shades, and her padded gloves and boots. A black eye was just about visible under the left visor. Her bright red hair had taken on its usual slightly bedraggled look and she tried to smooth it down with her left hand as she boarded.

She glanced about nervously for somewhere to sit and spotting Misha, moved quietly to the seat next to her. As she sat, she looked around the interior of the aircraft, somewhat awed by the technology of the Unity Wing.

Oh look!! DOOOOOOOOOOOM™ posts! I wasn't expecting that!

At the very least, SoulAsylum's techniques will be usefull for creating costumes pieces that you don't have models for. Otherwise you'll be stuck with whatever you can find online, and most of that isn't going to match costume pieces from CoH. 3DMax is a pretty essential tool when working with Poser, really.

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At last! Found this thread from Soulasylum explaining the steps she goes through to create her art in Poser. Unfortunately, it's in French but the linked images might help.

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Oooh! That's the picture she won mine & ShadowGhost's competition with!

That's STILL my wallpaper!

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Go Duo form. Its the only way.

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... No it's not... I run a triform, and it's VERY doable. She kicks major bottom too!

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Ah, I see. Well I guess you're right.
Could a moderator please move it then?
Thank you.



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Would probably help if you said WHAT server! Union, right?

Oh, and congrats btw!

(( Get it! It's a simple program to install, and free to use. ))

(( I written some fiction as a follow up to this, which can be found here.

Hope you all enjoy! ))

(( The following is a work of fiction based off of some roleplay you can find here. As refers back to a long running series of IC events all the way back in 2005.

WARNING: ANGST!

))

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Regrets

The morning was cold, the ground covered with the frost of early morning, and a thick mist lay like a blanket on the ground, dampening the sounds of this late winter morning. A pair of blackbirds hopped along the ground amongst the headstones of Kings Row Memorial Cemetery, searching for early worms.

The silence of the early morning was suddenly broken by the protesting squeal of the old iron gates to the cemetery as they were slowly pushed open, and the two blackbirds took flight with a startled squawk as a cloaked figure slipped through the partially open gates.

The cloaked figure glided slowly into the cemetery, and started to move amongst the various headstone; the mist twisting around it. As it moved from one grave to the next, it paused at each for moment, obviously searching for something, and from time to time a slender hand slipped out from the dark cloak to brush the names on the stones clean.

After almost 10 minutes of slow searching, the cloaked figure stopped before a group of 20 small marble headstones, their surfaces still polished from their relative newness in comparison to the rest of the graveyard. The graves themselves appeared to be well looked after, and fresh flowers adorned each, along with a small collection of stuffed animals and other toys; weathered from their exposure to the elements.

Slowly, the cloaked figure knelt on the ground before the graves, and a hand appeared from beneath the cloak, clutching a small bunch of white lilies. Gently, the hand lay the lilies on one of the graves, and another hand appeared; clutching a small white envelope. The hand laid the envelope with the lilies, and disappeared back into the cloak.


The soft scrape of a shoe on the ground caused the cloaked figure to whirl around suddenly, rising to her feet, and the hood fell to it’s shoulders to reveal the thin face of a young woman with short white hair and a pair of cat ears on her head. Her face carried a startled expression and her eyes widened as she saw the purple clad figure of someone she hadn’t seen in a very long time, and had hoped to never see again.

“You!” she exclaimed in a harsh whisper, her breath condensing in the cold morning air.

The purple clad figure watched her silently for a moment before replying. “It’s been a long time, child.” The figures’ voice was deep and cold, and as he spoke, no breath was visible.

“What are you doing back?” The woman asked; her voice sharp and angry. “You said you’d never come back!”

The purple clad figure chuckled, the sound almost like the growling of some large beast. “I’ve always been with you child, watching and listening, since the very beginning.”

The woman glared up at the figure before her, and backed away a single step. “What do you mean? Why are you here? Haven’t you done enough to me?” She asked, her voice rising from its former whisper.

“I have done nothing child, that you didn’t want me to do… As to why I’m here now, why… You called me here, child. Your very presence in this place called out to me; your heart and soul have yearned for my return for a long time. Again, I’m merely doing what you wish of me…”

“Liar!” the young woman snarled. “You destroyed my life! You forced me to do to this. “ She gestured towards the small graves behind her. “This is all YOUR fault! Why the hell would I want you back!?”

The figure chuckled once more, unimpressed by the woman’s ire. “You have it all wrong child. Look within yourself and you’ll see. You’ll see that all your excuses are just that… Excuses to hide from yourself what you truly are. You’ve seen the truth before, but you denied it. You saw it during your fight with Requiem’s soldiers, and revelled in what you did that day, just as you revelled in the carnage you wrought with these little ones...” He nodded towards the graves. “All I did was grant you the means to realise your potential. Accept it child, and you’ll find true joy.”

The woman shook her head, and her expression changed to one of fear and doubt. “No… That’s not true.. You’re the monster here, not me!”

“Me, child? A monster? Come now, what do the lives of such beings as live on this small world matter to one such as me? They cannot harm, or barely even perceive me; so what does it matter to me that they live? No… It was you child. Your anger at the way people treat you, the way they look at you. That is what did this; not I.”

He held out his hand towards her, palm beckoning. “I offered you once before child, to come with me and become what you truly are. I offer it again. Come with me. There is little for you here but an eventual repeat of what you have wrought before. Come with me and become what you are destined to be, you know I speak the truth.”

The woman shook her head again, her entire body trembling with both anger and fear. “NO! It was you! Not me! I didn’t do this! It’s a lie!” She started to sob as her emotions whirled in turmoil. “I didn’t do this! I couldn’t do this!”

“But you DID do this, child. The blood is on your hands, the taint is on your soul. You did this, and you revelled in it; see?” He waved his hand, and the scene around them changed. The temperature rose as walls closed in around them, and the sound of rushing water reached Ellie’s ears, along with the rank and musty smell of the sewers beneath the city.

A cry came from the tunnel that appeared around them both, and the slender form of a young hero ran past them; wearing what the woman recognized as her old uniform. The scene moved around them as the image of the young heroine ran down the tunnel, which opened out into a chamber the woman would never ever forget.

It was a large chamber, half full of old pumping machinery. To one side, a makeshift table was setup, and a bench covered in bloody instruments. Several Vahzilok surgeons, along with a group of their zombies, were clustered around a group of young children, most of which were sobbing in terror.

The woman watched in horror as the young heroine tore into the Vahzilok. At first the fight was as expected; with the heroine using her powers to disable the criminals, but then she was hit from behind and fell to the ground. A growl came from the heroine as she started to get to her feet; and bright claws if shining energy slid from her fingers as the growl grew louder. The remaining Vahzilok backed away, but for them it was far too late.

Minutes later, the last of the criminals had fallen, ripped apart by the heroine, and then she turned towards the children, her eyes filled with bloodlust. With a roar more akin to an animal than a human, the heroine transformed into the energy beast known as Kurukt; and charged.

The woman turned away from the scene before her, her hands over her eyes as they flooded with tears. “NO!!!” She screamed, “Stop it! Take it away!”

The man laughed, and once again waved his hand; causing the images to dissolve back to the graveyard. “You see child? It was your own rage, your own bloodlust which did this; not I. Only you can bare the blame for your actions.”

The woman had fallen to her knees as the purple figure spoke, and she sobbed heavily into her hands. “No… No… I’m not a monster… I’m not… That wasn’t me!”

He took a few steps forwards and knelt down to place a hand on the womans shoulder. “Accept it child. Accept the truth, and come with me; lest you wrought more horror on the others around you.”

At the figures’ touch, information flooded her mind from within. Images of the true nature of this creature before her, fed to her by the symbionte which dwelt within her mind and body. She tensed and her head snapped up to look at him. Deep within her eyes, a bright light began to glow and with a defiant scream of “NOOOOO!”, she threw his hand from her shoulder and pushes him away from her.

“No!” She screamed again. “You’re LYING! I know the truth now… It WAS you all along! You’re just trying to do it to me again! Trying to control me, make me do what you want! That’s what you wanted last time, for me to go with you!”

She backpedalled from her, and raised her hands; a glow of blue/white energy surrounding them. “YOU’RE the monster here, not me! I’m innocent, innocent! I could NEVER have hurt those children. And I could never hurt Jess! You’re wrong, monster. Wrong!”

Energy burst forth from her eyes and hands; and ripped in to the dark figure before her. More power than she had ever felt before coursed through her body and slammed the creature back. With a final scream of effort, even more power surged from her hands and eyes, and ripped straight through the figure’s body and out the other side; melting the walls of a nearby crypt into a puddle of molten stone.

The light in her eyes winked out with the beams of energy; and she dropped back to her knees, sobbing.



A voice, and a soft touch on her shoulder. “Excuse me? Are you alright?”

The woman’s head snapped up and saw the concerned face of an older woman looking in to her eyes. She looked around and saw that she was still knelt before one of the small graves, by the flowers and card she had laid there. All around her looked completely normal; even the crypt that she had melted seconds before…

Confused, she looked back up at the older woman. “What? Where?”

The older woman smiled, “You were shouting, miss. Are you sure you’re OK?”

“I... I… think so.. “ she replied as she started to get up. As she did, the hood from her cloak fell from her head; where it had seemingly been all this time.

As her tear streaked face was revealed, the older woman’s eyes widened, and she backed away hurriedly. “It’s you!”

Her face forming a deep scowl, she glared at the young woman in the cloak. “What right do you have to be here? This is my little boys resting place, not somewhere for his murderer to gloat over what she did!”

The young woman put her hands up, palms outward. “Please… You don’t understand… I’m… not here to do that... I don’t mean any disrespect!”

Putting her hands on her hips, the older woman glared angrily. “You should get out of here, You don’t belong here.”

The young woman bowed her head, and a tear dropped to the ground, landing on the card she’d laid. “I… I’m sorry… I’ll… I’ll just go then…”

She turned and starting to walk away whilst behind her, the older woman bend down to pick up the card that lay there. Opening the envelope, she quickly read the card and called out. “Wait.”

The younger woman stopped, and her breath caught in her throat as she turned back to face the older woman.

“You mean this?” The older woman asked, “You really want to meet with us to try to explain why this happened?”

The younger woman nodded, not trusting her voice to not break.

The older woman’s scowl eased a little, as the poor emotional state of the younger woman finally started to register with her. “Saying sorry isn’t good enough… It can never be good enough… But perhaps a WHY might help us understand.” She glanced back down at the card, reading the ornate handwriting once more. “I’ll talk to the others, see what they say. Don’t expect them to be ready to listen though.”

The younger woman shook her head, and spoke in a quiet voice. “I… just want to… to explain… We’re all victims… of this…”

The older woman nodded. “We’ll see what the others say. Meet me here tomorrow at 10am… No, not here… at the entrance. If the others are willing; we’ll listen to what you have to say. For now though, you’d better get out of here; they’ll be here soon.”

The younger woman nodded and turned away once more, then with a heavy sigh, she went home.

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what if it wasn't an opinion on the rikti, and these people claimed that it was the truth.... such as a hero or villain from another planet who was attacked by the rikti as cut through the galaxy on their way to attack earth?

because... you know... i seen that in a bio before.....

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A lot of people belive nutty things in real life why would it be different in game?

A mans truth is all in his head anyway.

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Deep... Very very deep.

Wrong too. A mans truth is whatever his wife/girlfriend tells him it is!

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EDIT : Seen 'Retcon' a couple of times now... it means?

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Basically it means you have to erase some events from your characters IC life, making it as if they didn't happen to prevent damaging your character. The worst one I've had to do happened a long time ago, and involved another character putting mine through such traumatic events that she'd have killed herself to get away from the mental torment. As I didn't want that, but dislike breaching ICA=ICC, I had no choice but to retcon; especially as the guy responsible did it as he was leaving the game, purely for kicks...

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But people who refuse to concile are not exactly the ones I'm mixing ideas with.


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And I don't dispute that either. I'm glad for you that you can game with people willing to adjust their game to reconcile with others. Unfortunately, not everyone is that accomodating. I've come across a fair number of people who won't budge from their odd view of the game world, and it's forced me to retcon several times because of it. In each case, they were people who ignored the canon and tried to force their ideas on others.

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Am example:

Game canon says Rikti are mutated humans from another dimension.
Player A says Rikti are actual alien invaders from another galaxy; and not humans
Player B says Rikti are from the far future and are evolved humans.
Player C says Rikti don't exist in the game.

All players present well reasoned arguments for their views.

How do you reconcile such contradicting views to your OWN view of what Rikti are?

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You might have missed the part when I said "well thought ideas" and "conciliating player".
If those conditions are existing, I doubt your exercice would stay the same for long and stances will evolve.

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So, you agree then that it's not always possible to reconcile conflicting views?

Personally, given such a situation, I think the safest option is to always go with the canon.

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To be sincere, I have yet to end in a situation where views about the game world cannot be conciliated.
So I simply don't share your views about the impossibility to mix ideas.
If you have as a basis a well thought idea and a conciliating player, how can you fail ?

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An example:

Game canon says Rikti are mutated humans from another dimension.
Player A says Rikti are actual alien invaders from another galaxy; and not humans
Player B says Rikti are from the far future and are evolved humans.
Player C says Rikti don't exist in the game.

All players present well reasoned arguments for their views.

How do you reconcile such contradicting views to your OWN view of what Rikti are?

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But then what do you do if a different person comes along with contradicting story bits about Rikti, but which equally serves a story purpose and is done in a well thought out manner?

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If it's done in a well thought manner, i'll look for a way to conciliate his vision to mine.


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That's not quite what I asked. It's easy enough to reconcile one persons view with your own. I asked what do you do when you have TWO (or more even), totally conflicting views, in addition to your own. At some point, you can't continue to add other views together because they conflict too much.

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Far easier to stick to the official canon. At least then you know where things stand.

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Save there isn't much info about what is canon anyway and all arguments about it are coming from the lack of detailed informations, never from the Paragon City Gazeeter.

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There is PLENTY of information on huge areas of the game where fudging just isn't necessary. True, the info on Kheldian backstory is limited; but for most of the other villain organisations in the game, there is masses of info.

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If you want to play a hero in Paragon City, a basic knowledge of the city history is generally going to be presumed by most people. Things like the citizen crime fighting act should be known to ALL, as it's the very basis of your hero license.

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I don't recall there is an exam about canon before you can start playing.


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Show me where I said anything about HAVING to know it before you start playing. I said a basic knowledge is generally going to be presumed by most people. Please read more carefully.


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Same for missions. I am using missions my own way. I don't care about the briefing.

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Just out of curiousity... If you dislike the game setting so much that you just ignore it, why do you play?

As for the badges; a large number of them are tied to game story. You would only HAVE said badge if you'd completed certain story arcs or task forces, so should be familiar with the part of the game story connected to them... That means that I can safely refer to said stories ICly, and have a reasonable expectation that you would understand what I was on about.

If you want to ignore that part of the story, that's perfectly fine by me. But it's up to you to communicate that to other players or the majority WILL assume you know and accept it.

Note: The word "you" is used here in its generic sense, and not the personal.

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I won't rule out Rikti invasions just for the sake of doing it. But I might accept some story bits contradicting with canon, about Riktis, if it serves a story purpose and is done in a well thought manner.

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But then what do you do if a different person comes along with contradicting story bits about Rikti, but which equally serves a story purpose and is done in a well thought out manner? Do you accept both and therefore break your own immersion, or do you reject the second persons view? If you do that, you might as well reject the first persons too, as both are presented equally well.

Far easier to stick to the official canon. At least then you know where things stand.

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Must ask when you have ever been attacked by a void/quantum while not using any powers at all ((including passives))?


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Lots of times. Hell, I've been fired upon by Voids when just running (no sprint) down the street and didn't see him lurking in the alley.

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Or to put it another way if Arakhn can just see who a peacebringer is why use voids and the council at all?

Why not just simply jump them in the streets and eat them there?

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Because the game canon says that they use Voids and Quantums; simple.

"Easy to detect" is relative. A normal person won't be able to tell the difference unless they're using their powers... But someone either of the same species, or using weapons designed to kill them; can. And that's the point of this discussion. Ellie is a PB, she has the senses to detect another member of the same species UNLESS they're actively doing something to prevent such detection. There is plenty of game canon to indicate this is possible.

The player had nothing in their bio to indicate they were a kheldian, and nothing to indicate they were hiding that fact. Ergo, my character considered them not a kheldian.

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Or to put it another way if a Kheldian was easy to detect when not using powers why use a an Army of highly Visable matching uniformed troops?


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Hence the existence of Quantum mobs. The Council have distributed these weapons freely amongst the criminal element of Paragon, so they can hunt Khelds at will. The Void troops are, IIRC, a mercenary force run by the council.

And it doesn't matter if you're using your powers or not. The instant you enter aggro range with one of those mobs, they target and fire; so they are able to detect you. Using your powers is irrelevant.

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I'd say that the need for an army of void hunters would be a cannon reason for it not just being a case of that perfectly normal person looks a bit peace bringery to me.

I mean why would they need mind controlled slaves to hunt them down when they could just sit in the street and follow people home?

I mean yeah if they walked around all the time with blazing light coming from their eyes then it'd be fairly obvious.

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Except that a Void Hunter (and any quantum wielding mob), instantly knows who the Kheldian is, and targets them as soon as they're in aggro range. What gives them that information? A void has a Nictus shard implanted in them, a quantum just has the gun itself (sensors possibly?). Either way. Voids and Q know instantly, so there IS canon to indicate khelds can be easily recognized.

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Take it like Superman or a DBZ character, if they were allways using whatever power supes them up then they'd cut through a urinal when ever they whent for a whizz and possibly the wall behind and several buildings.

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Hence why it took Clark forever to get jiggy with Lana.

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This is just a personal theory, but wouldn't a peacebringer/warshades energy be supressed when its in a host, a kinda hide from the things that eat me/ stick me in a starship as fuel ability?

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As there is no canon to indicate something like this in either direction; the simplest presumption would be no, unless the player has something in their bio to tell other players this.

It's this basis that Ellie's ability to sense other kheldians is based. Unless they're doing something to suppress their energy signature, she knows what they are. Just like her sense of smell will allow her to breach someones secret identity, IF she meets them in both hero garb and civilian, and IF they're not doing something to mask their scent (When Nevermore found out, he was NOT amused and next day was wearing a pheremone masking device ). She never lets on that she knows though.

However, her senses ARE listed in her bio, so people can let me know if she can't sense things about them.

If you want to play a hero in Paragon City, a basic knowledge of the city history is generally going to be presumed by most people. Things like the citizen crime fighting act should be known to ALL, as it's the very basis of your hero license.

Other canon I tend to treat as badge related. If a person has badge A, then I expect them to know the canon related to badge A; just like if a person is playing epic AT B, I expect them to be familiar with the basic canon related to epic AT B. If they choose to ignore said canon, but fail to communication that to players X, Y and Z; then they only have themselves to blame when their character gets treated as a nut.

Canon forms the very basis of the world we play in; and ignoring it is a terribly short sighted thing to do. Work around it sure; as long as you let people know, but IGNORING it? Not a good idea, IMO.

The easiest common ground available to everyone is the game canon. It's only when you fudge that issues can arise.