The Big Question of Continuity

[MetaVileTerror]

I'm unsure if anyone has addressed this, or if it's even on people's radars, but it has been a pretty central question to all of my character backstories:  What are we in agreement on in regard to the Sunset and the time gap since we last played?

 

In my head-canon, I'm leaning toward that the original Live Server Shards were all dimensions that were successfully invaded by the Battalion, and most heroes and villains were wiped out.  Some fled through dimensional portals, and ended up becoming refugees on these new Shards.  The lack of forward momentum in the overall narrative could be assumed to be a matter of these Shards are simply 5'ish years behind the Shards those refugees originated from.

 

What are other roleplayers' thoughts on this?

[deathevan]

This is basically what I settled on after reading through all the lore AMAs and Tyrants bio in MxM, it's pretty similar to your own with a one big divergence.

 

We know what was supposed to go down before the game closed so my own headcanon is that Live servers went through the coming storm and defeated it in the method it was laid out in the Lore AMAs/MxM and intended to occur by Paragon Studios. Tyrant pretends to be statesman and serves as the symbol everyone needed, rallies everyone, and they win. The End

 

New shards are alternate realities where for reason x, y, or z, those events haven't transpired yet, if at all

[_NOPE_]

What you said.

[JusticeBowler]

So far I've been deliberately role-playing up the ambiguity and mystery of it. One of the things I like about the Elder Scrolls series of games is that various factions ("historians" "researchers" "whatever") have very different ideas about "what really happened."

 

I'm perfectly fine with the idea that some people "noticed" 5 years missing, other people don't. Maybe it was an illusion, maybe some people really are quantum copies from some other shard. Maybe it is just another needlessly complex plot by Nemesis.

 

At any rate, two of my characters will insist that something happened but they have no idea what (they are low level yet after all and don't have a reputation or access to the sorts of things that would tell them what happened) and the other character will absolutely insist that nothing happened at all and it is just another conspiracy theory.

 

Let there be no right answer.

[MetaVileTerror]

You know, I think you speak wisdom there, 'Bowler.  The player-authority of City of Heroes / City of Villains has always been its greatest strength.  "Don't fix what ain't broke."

 

So, with that in mind, I suppose we should shift gears slightly and ask folks what their personal takes on the answer happen to be.

[NekoAli]

I'm going with an alternate timeline/dimension idea for my head canon. They way that Marvel and DC have different versions of their worlds, and in fact as already exists in CoX lore. Some are drastically different, like Praetorian Earth. Others just have slightly different tweaks. There was no Storm that closed off the Prime Earth we knew before. Instead, this is a near identical alternate reality. Some people are different. Prime Ashya was a Dark/Empathy Defender, Homecoming Ashya is a Dark/Pain Corruptor. Still essentially the same character, but from different branching realities.

 

The same way we can have people that knew about the destruction of Prime, since they came from in and were able to escape via Portal Corp, Oroborous or other means. They made their way to Homecoming Earth. And we can also have people native to this timeline who don't know what happened to Prime, since they never went through it.

[Kalkin]

Blue Steel snapped his fingers and we all came back from the dimensional vortex after a vicious battle.

 

Pretty much just like this:

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

My head canon is that the writing staff changed and the new writers decided to do a full continuity reboot. So now they're doing new origin stories for all of the old characters and introducing some new ones.

 

I'll admit I've always taken a somewhat meta view of my characters as if they are actually comic book characters. So for example back in the day I switched a bunch of heroes over to villains in order to unlock patron pools. My head canon was that a new writer had decided to make the character darker and edgier and turn them into a violent vigilante who went to far. But that was so poorly received by the audience that the next writer ended up retconning it and everyone just pretended it never happened.

[Scow2]

It might be because I'm new, but I'm for "Hard Reboot of all characters". Our journeys have begun again.

[Big Game]

I’m personally in favour of considering CoX Homecoming as a rebooted continuity for my characters.  After all while a lot of people are back in game there are still so many characters missing that were integral to past rp interactions.  Not only that this is an ideal time to make changes to characters, wipe back story/past rp you are not happy with and start fresh but with more focused concepts.  As for time period I think I’ll do my best to avoid saying it is any specific date or reference certain ingame events as having as happened.  However should any community my characters interact with come to a consensus on continuity I would most likely adopt that continuity as I much prefer rping in a shared universe.

[jkwak]

i didnt sart to RP on Homecomming yet, but for me Evil beings on a Multiverse treat Level Destroyed the old Universes, some Heroes escaped.

 

The new Servers are the new Universe created from the remains of the old, by a secret group of surviving Heroes and Villains and only resemble the old Universes at the moment of there Destruction.

 

it fits with what OOC actually happend and still makes IC sense

 

TLDR it is a a soft reboot, that only changes the backstory of some heroes and some Heroes even Remember what happend befor the reboot

 

[Coyotedancer]

I cheated.

Well, actually I sort of ducked the question entirely, which might as well be cheating.

 

Rather than recreating any of my old characters and figuring out where they've been and what they might've been up to for years, I decided to start fresh with completely new ones. They're vaguely related to the old gang... Amun and Anut are members of the same species as my original flock of "bird-things" and Kaikara is the apprentice of one of my semi-reformed Oranbegan magi... but being individuals without the same "burden of history" as those older creations has made it much easier for me to gloss over some details.

 

What happened to the other Elysion Guardians? Amun and Anut have no idea. They only know that they're the only ones currently on Primal Earth.

 

Where has Tavaris been? That's not something he's willing to discuss with his young apprentice. 'Not when she still has three chapters of the Obsidian Librum to read and that new minor binding ritual to practice, anyway.

 

Maybe that makes me a lazy storyteller on some level, but I find myself much more interested in making something new than in strictly revisiting the past.

[Fista]

Links to lore AMA and Bible please.

[Zumberge]

Well the great part about being based on superhero media is that there's such a wealth of possible approaches to explain what happened based on story arcs and plotlines used by real world writers!  For example:

 

* All of Statesman's non-canon children were trapped in a containment field in space and one of them punched reality so hard it rebooted everything.

* This is actually the City of Heroes cinematic universe.

* Four words: Crisis on Infinite Servers.

* There was no time skip.  All the exposure to psychic hoboes and carnies and toxic gas caused everyone to trip balls so hard they thought six years had passed.

* Someone made a deal with Rularuu for everything to be undone to save their aunt.  Dude, she's like a hundred years old.  She lead a good life.  She stormed Normandy, for crying out loud.

* Lord Recluse was about to kill Raiden in the darkest timeline but Raiden sent a message back in time to hopefully avert disaster.  Wait, "he must win?"  Who must win?  And where?  Thanks a lot, Raiden. >:/

 

 

[MetaVileTerror]

Links, per Fista's request:

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Story_Bible

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Canon_Fodder

[EmperorSteele]

...so, I kinda RP'd the loss of powers when Paragon Chat came out, but with these new servers, I've just been so happy to play that I haven't given much thought to this elephant in the room (though to be fair, in Paragon City, an elephant is usually the least interesting thing in a given room)!

 

But now? I dunno, it almost feels like nothing happened. Though back on Live, i DID make a future version of my main who came back in time to avert the Comming Storm. She obviously failed, so that kinda leaves that version of the character up in the air...

[Atlas Television]

When in doubt I use the comic book method.  New 52, The Crisis on Infinite Earths, The White Event, The New Universe are my guide.

 

The answer for me is that the new servers translate into a reboot of the CoH Comic Book Universe.

 

+Some characters will have no changes and not notice anything different at all, it's the very next day of their lives.

+Some characters are suddenly 6 years older and time has past since we last saw them.

+Some characters are aware that something has fundamentally changed.

+Time has always flowed differently in comic books as the setting is based on narrative and not actual coherence to real time.  Spider-Man was vaguely either in high school or 'around' college age for decades at a time, I see no reason for any of us to be canonically more specific outside of our own personal characters.

 

This method keeps player choice intact and doesn't burden new players with knowing any additional Lore or Canon.  The beauty of CoH is that it's canon is incredibly loose, just like comic books allowing more creativity and originality to flourish.

 

Happy Storysharing.

[Fista]

Thank you for the links.

 

Looks like they were going to have a player created character take Statsman's place on the Freedom Phalanx.  Was not Fusionette implied, heavily, to be the next incarnation of Zeus?

[deathevan]

So far I've been deliberately role-playing up the ambiguity and mystery of it. One of the things I like about the Elder Scrolls series of games is that various factions ("historians" "researchers" "whatever") have very different ideas about "what really happened."

 

I'm perfectly fine with the idea that some people "noticed" 5 years missing, other people don't. Maybe it was an illusion, maybe some people really are quantum copies from some other shard. Maybe it is just another needlessly complex plot by Nemesis.

 

At any rate, two of my characters will insist that something happened but they have no idea what (they are low level yet after all and don't have a reputation or access to the sorts of things that would tell them what happened) and the other character will absolutely insist that nothing happened at all and it is just another conspiracy theory.

 

Let there be no right answer.

 

This is actually a really good response. Since there are theoretically an infinite number of alternate universes that are so similar it'd take a lifetime to find out what was different(if anything), anyone's interpretation as to the what or the why could be correct. So really there is no 'right' interpretation of what happened

[jkwak]

so basicly Marvel post Secret Wars (2015)?

 

 

some know what happend (like the Fantastic4),

some know something happend but not what happend (Peter Parker knows Miles Morales is from an other universe but dosnt remembers the events that lead to Miles move to the his Universe),

some think it was always that way (like most normal Humans),

some changed and dont know it,

some are from an alternate universe and dont know it (like Bombshell),

some are from an alternate universe and dont know how they get here (like Old man Logan),

some are from an alternate universe and know how they get here (like Miles Morales)

and some are entirely new characters.

[Jon]

There will never be a singular continuity that satisfies everyone's characters. Don't think too much about it and just explain the time gap in whatever way makes the most sense to you, and be prepared to accept other people's explanations at face value.

[Starforge]

There will never be a singular continuity that satisfies everyone's characters. Don't think too much about it and just explain the time gap in whatever way makes the most sense to you, and be prepared to accept other people's explanations at face value.

[Charistoph]

My main is using the same name as my main from NCServer days, but I've rebuilt him to a new set.  Why?  I like the new set.  How do I explain it?  Well:

 

This one's the nephew of the old one.  Several years ago, all the heroes and villains disappeared as if with the snap of a finger.  All of a sudden, heroes and villains are appearing again, some old, some new, and he's discovered he has similar powers to his uncle, so he took up his mantle.

 

And yes, that is an Endgame rip off.  I don't care, it fits too well, and the MCU has done well with MOST of its content.

[johua]

You're never going to get everyone to agree on this.

 

I prefer to play as if time just kept chugging along. No muss, no fuss. My characters did stuff in the interim, etc.

[Zolgar]

So, I'm kinda going off the idea that Everlasting is a different dimension than Virtue, so if I remake any of my old chars, I am making them a little different, kind of a "what if..." scenario, ya know?