IanTheM1

I decided it would be a good time to go back through the letters to pick out choice tidbits, after remembering a bit about the writer forming their own team to deal with the Storm, which fits with the Lady Grey suspicions.

But yeah, here we go:

From The Pilgrim's arc:

As in, once, forever, on a given account? That's pretty bad too, to be perfectly honest.

And it still doesn't really address one of the core issues with powerset respecs - I could play a powerset combo that excels at the low levels, then upgrade to one that dominates in the late game.

Admittedly it was out of my mind since there was already a thread about it a few days ago.

Plus I haven't gone out of my way to pick up most of the new badges yet, aside from the Monster Island and Abyss ones. (And they didn't have much aside from some weird writing, including a worrying emphasis on Rikti monkey poo.)

So I19 has brought us a lot of new information to munch on, so I figured I'd open up a thread for some rampant speculation, especially since me and some friends have started cooking up some really crazy theories.

Mender Ramiel

It's well established that Ramiel doesn't care for Silos all that much, though still cares about defending against the Coming Storm. As such, he's rather invested in gaining our characters the power of an Incarnate.

At the end of his arc, it's readily apparent that Silos and Ramiel are about a second away from openly asking each other where the other put the Well. Your character then finds another letter that states that "As always, seek me out in the crystal of fire and ice. Or... depending on when you are reading this, you may have merely seen me minutes ago." This immediately puts a big red arrow over Silos or Ramiel, though theoretically it could be any character previously seen in the arc or none of them thanks to the ambiguity of the phrasing.

But...as a friend suddenly noticed as we were discussing the arc: Re-arrange the letters in Ramiel and you get..."mailer". Not to mention that what we know of them is comparable in regards to disliking Silos and wanting to be prepared for the Storm. You also quite literally go to look for him in the pillar, or at least A pillar, in the very first mission of the arc..

So, what about Silos? I doubt he's unaware of the traitor in his own ranks. He's immediately suspicious of Ramiel in the final mission of the arc, and rather interestingly is also the only one who knows of Ramiel's past, according to Ramiel's short bio. I read that to mean that Silos also knows Ramiel's true identity.

So who is Ramiel? I'm sorely tempted to attach previous theories to this one and randomly claim that Ramiel is what remains of the Dream Doctor's original self, but I admit that this is purely wild speculation.

Ramiel's Arc

There are a few interesting tidbits of information I noted from Ramiel's arc, primarily the first mission.

While their descriptions claim they're simply being extracted from your character's own memories, the Echoes are rather curious in their presentation. They constantly try to foil the player character and speak as though they're controlled by an unknown malefactor. They also immediately make one think of the Shadow Shard's Reflections.

Additionally, a large number of them are either explicitly Incarnates, or implicitly Incarnates. Sister Psyche and Positron feel like odd choices until one remembers that Sister Solaris and Daedalus are major players in Cimerora, implying they are a form of Incarnate. Even the non-Hero or AV echoes seen later in the arc are directly connected to Incarnates - 5th Column, Longbow, Vanguard, Rikti, and Arachnos. The only extremely odd inclusion is Glacia, an echo of a member of the Omega Team.

Of course, there's also the unfightable character seen on the mission map: Hamidon. The large green tentacles that gleam with an odd teal slick caused me to think back to a specific piece of propaganda seen in Praetoria, one featuring a many-tentacled roaring beast kept at bay by sonic fences. I think it's pretty safe to say it's him.

One last note on Ramiel's arc: It states that links to the Well appear throughout the universe, and Ramiel also says that it exists throughout other dimensions as well. This opens up a rather sizable can of worms concerning things like the Shivans, the Leviathan, and Rularuu.

Lady Grey

Could she be the mythical Lady of the Lake? Considering her lifespan and supposed power, she definitely seems like a possible Incarnate. But then why does she act so secretive in Ramiel's arc?

Vincent Ross' Arc

For starters, we are told that Blood Coral is, essentially, a more powerful version of Red Coral that is created through a special ritual. One that involves sacrificing a being of pure shadow or pure light. So in other words, Kheldians. Twilight's Son, waaaaay back in I11, told us that the Coming Storm uses Kheldians to fuel their ships. Connection?

On top of that, we now have the lingering question of who or what is the shadowy figure that killed Merulina. (We also still don't know the identity of who was/is mucking with the time stream in the first place.)

Power Cannot Be Destroyed

One of the other choice tidbits comes from golden voice of the Well itself in Vincent Ross' arc. It states that power cannot be destroyed, simply transferred.

Question: The Rikti killed all of their gods. Where did that power go?

Apex and Tin Mage

Haven't done these yet. I'm under the impression they purely focusing on the Praetorian conflict, however, so I'm not sure how many plot snippets they contain.


And now for some theories of mine:

Ramiel's Trick

You travel into the future to experience a memory of your future self thanks to a shard of crystal of ice and flame that Ramiel hands over to you. For starters, this is not an ability previously established that the crystals can grant. It also brings up a lot of questions of what your character was doing at the time. And why go to Ouroboros just after the Storm came and went? Why were the temporal echoes waiting for you? Why did your character just happen to have the crystal ready to give to Ramiel? Why was Ramiel the only Mender left?

This feels odd. Almost as if it was staged. Could Ramiel have faked the memory? It gives him a quick and dirty alibi that puts him above suspicion. Why did he suddenly show up recently? Oh, well, Character Name told him to! Hrm. It's also a very odd story element when you consider that all Incarnates must do his arc in order to unlock the Alpha Slot...

This feels like a manipulation befitting of the letter writer, if the two are one in the same.

The Shivans

You know, we never quite learned what Shiva was, other than a "world devouring god". But we know the Shivans are apparently the envoys of the Coming Storm.

I realized something curious about the Shivans, though. They're made of ectoplasm, a blue/green goo. They have cores that rest at the center of their mass. They come from meteor fragments; rocks that pulse with a strange energy that apparently have some kind of sentience about them. And they use human bodies as a host of sorts.

Ectoplasm with a core at its center? Sentient rocks powered by a strange energy? And they (can) use human bodies as a host.

Just throwing in that I've gotten this to appear once. It was while Ninja Running through Nova Praetoria in the middle of a jump (executed with the numpad 0 key, just to be thorough).

I'm still thinking it's related to Ramiel's first mission, since I'm pretty sure (one of?) the uber-buffs is called Freem (you could even look it up with brackets in I18 as [Core Radial Freem] or somesuch).

Perhaps due to the way it's coded, Ramiel grants the player those powers, but they don't activate until triggered by the mission map?

If you ask him about the Incarnate system, at some point you get a dialogue option to ask about Silos, and yes, he does explain it.

Though it's not much of a revelation to at least some of us. It was all but admitted by the devs pretty soon after I11 came out.

I'm up for anything that mitigates the have and have-nots design approach they've taken, first with Vanguard Merits and now Incarnate Shards.

The helmets, just like the Prestige Sprints, were a pre-order bonus which did not have an additional cost attached to them (the $5 for the pre-order went towards the $50 purchase).

Basically, the line they've drawn is concerning whether or not a player has spent extra money for an exclusive item. That said, I'm not really sure why they've dragged on reintroducing those items, since it seems like easy money.

For the record, the devs' recorded stance on the matter was that exclusive collector's items will never be given out for free, such as part of a Veteran Reward.

The NCSoft store used to sell the standalone version of the CoH DVD edition goodies, which included the in-box extras, which is why it was eventually discontinued due to lack of supplies.

I don't see any problem with releasing a Collector's Booster Pack that featured the CoH and CoV special edition in-game goodies.

And speaking of exclusives, when are the GR pre-order enhancements getting added as veteran rewards?

Rather frustratingly, there are a lot of references to open plot threads in tip missions now. I seem to recall one foreshadowing stuff about Dark Astoria, for example.

If there's a plot thread I really want to get picked back up, it's the Cavern of Transcendence/the Minions of Igneous.

What if I want both? Would you have to re-earn the requirments (another 200 Council, for example) to get the other piece, or would you be locked out forever?

I've said before that it would be sensible to make it so that titles of your origin unlock at 25, the rest at 35.

It's not a bad idea, but it doesn't solve the awkwardness of having to roll up the character, then cash in the recipe, then fix the costume, likely using up a token in the process.