The Big Question of Continuity

[jkwak]

I am making them a little different, kind of a "what if..." scenario, ya know?

a what if version of a character is actually a good idea.

 

i think i m going to recreate one of my Old character as "what if Stan Lee created him"

[Ry]

Personally, since having the entire community of mixed RPers from certain timezones follow a certain "What happened?" in this space would be an utter nightmare, so I personally prefer a "We dont know what happened" flare to it. Because its the easiest way. Back on the Union server we had sort of an MCU thing going on where everything was pretty connected, dont ask me how we did that because I am still trying to figure out how we did it many years down the line. I theorise that was maybe down to the RP community there being much smaller. But here that isnt the case, the RP community on Everlasting is bursting with people, I've met so many people both old and new in such a short space of time. Most have just picked up right where they left off because we honestly didnt know enough about the Battalion to justify their full involvement, at least in my eyes, we knew they were coming, we knew it would be a big deal. But we dont know what they looked like, what weapons they used, what methods of battle they had in place, its all utterly dark because of the shut down, which again cements the "We dont know what happened". Maybe they infiltrated us? Maybe it could be something we explore as a community sometime? Or maybe we make our own "Big Bad" to fight. Either way, I'm just happy to be back, so however we tackle it, have fun and kick some posterior. :D

[_NOPE_]

What if we called it... "The Happening"? It can be as confusing and inexplicable as the movie!

[jkwak]

What if we called it... "The Happening"?

not epic enough, maybe "The Secret Happening"

[Charistoph]

What if we called it... "The Happening"? It can be as confusing and inexplicable as the movie!

 

Better than the insufficient "Decimation".

[dgrimm]

I'm personally going to be either making all new characters or alternate versions of old characters with divergent history. That's just my personal take on things, keeps it all neat and tidy for me.

[Zolgar]

I'm personally going to be either making all new characters or alternate versions of old characters with divergent history. That's just my personal take on things, keeps it all neat and tidy for me.

 

A divergent timeline where Fronty was a Hydra agent? :p

[Terminal]

Personally, I like to think of it as an event analogous to TES Dragon Breaks. The Coming Storm happened, people remember or do not remember it, the Earth both survived and fell to it, everything is simultaneously true and false, all is one, one is all, the circuit is complete. That period of time is ineffable, indiscernible, impossible to establish any exact chronology of events with any certainty. This is just as well, with Ouroboros and the Furies being involved, a Dragon Break is not even an unlikely response to a threat like the Battalion.

[Hyperman]

All my characters went to Millennium City for one reason or another. 

 

One of my Villains got an early release in exchange for community service.  She registered as a hero with the FBSA and was stationed there.

 

My main Hero had been killed off and his protege took his name.  Not thinking he could live under the shadow of his predecessor, he "returned" to his hometown of Millennium City.  I had really intended to kill off main in an RP somewhere with the intention of re-rolling a Praetorian version of my character to take over.  I don't know whose idea it was to do this with Tyrant and Statesman but I had thought of it first! :D And had even made the Praetorian character and everything!  Think I was level 18 before the game went down. 

 

A few of my other characters would occasionally cameo in Millennium City.  Alluding to the Coming Storm having came and went.  It having something to do with my main Hero's death.  All of my alts trying to urge my character to return to Paragon to help with it's reconstruction and see all his friends.

 

I've always thought CO and CoH sharing some continuity made a kind of sense.  Even if it doesn't really.

[Nic Mercy]

I remade one of my old characters from live and used his background as an explanation of what happened.

 

Aedan Parker is a man out of time. Originally he fought as a Paragon Protector after a Crey experiment with time travel granted him his super human powers. When the evil of Countess Crey was revealed, Aedan sided with the heroes of Paragon City to help end her corruption. He began a career as the registered hero Chronomaly after those events.

 

As the Battalion arrived, and was about to destroy the Earth, Aedan attempted to travel back in time with vital intel to change the outcome of that future. Unfortunately, the process drained nearly all his power and now he struggles living in a past where his previous exploits never happened and Aedan Parker never existed. He survives knowing all he's lost personally bought the entire world a second chance at survival. His only regret being the family and boyfriend who no longer have any idea who he is.

 

Basically "timey wimey" BS. :)

[Stan The Man]

I remade one of my old characters from live and used his background as an explanation of what happened.

 

Aedan Parker is a man out of time. Originally he fought as a Paragon Protector after a Crey experiment with time travel granted him his super human powers. When the evil of Countess Crey was revealed, Aedan sided with the heroes of Paragon City to help end her corruption. He began a career as the registered hero Chronomaly after those events.

 

As the Battalion arrived, and was about to destroy the Earth, Aedan attempted to travel back in time with vital intel to change the outcome of that future. Unfortunately, the process drained nearly all his power and now he struggles living in a past where his previous exploits never happened and Aedan Parker never existed. He survives knowing all he's lost personally bought the entire world a second chance at survival. His only regret being the family and boyfriend who no longer have any idea who he is.

 

Basically "timey wimey" BS. :)

 

I like it!

[Agorazium]

I haven't started RPing yet (rolled all my characters on Indom before the RP server was announced), but I plan on using the alternate-universe explanation. Several of my characters have undergone significant changes since 2012, or I just have new ideas for them, so this is a nice excuse to start fresh-ish.

[Wenlocke]

I kind of like the idea of a variation on the theme from Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time."

 

Essentially, history shattered. Into little bits. It was repaired, fairly seamlessly from the POV of the people in it, but because of having to make patches fit, make do and mend, things ended up a little... different, and had always been so.

[chase]

I kind of like the idea of a variation on the theme from Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time."

 

Essentially, history shattered. Into little bits. It was repaired, fairly seamlessly from the POV of the people in it, but because of having to make patches fit, make do and mend, things ended up a little... different, and had always been so.

 

I like this too.  It even made sense in the original game.  I recall conflicting elements in the Talos / Dark Astoria area (plaques and other lore) that seemed to make the most sense only IF you were looking into the past through a shattered mirror pieced back together... or just like there may be many divergent futures from this point of time, there may be many pasts converging at any time...

 

 

The one concession I've made is several high-school/college-age characters that were originally intended to have lived through the trauma of the Rikti war (usually growing up in Baumton).  I still want them to be in that age-range, but the game time's been moved on.  Many of those are being re-imagined as Galaxy City teens, since it's a more recent "big disaster."

 

 

 

 

 

[Excalliber]

For me and my wife, we set aside our hero personas to raise our in-game son.  He'd been kidnapped and experimented on by Crey and others in an attempt to steal the armor my main wears.  Didn't work out and was returned in an adult body but child-like mind.  So, after Sunset, we decided it was time to be parents and not heroes.  Now, it's seven years later, he's in college, and the city once more needs our skills.  Pretty cut and dried without trying to hoopla it up much other than we're old now.  :)

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

I am just treating it as 2012 in the game world. I treat anyone talking about it being our time as someone displaced from a possible future. After all we have time travel portals opening up all the time.

 

And I have to ask why would we even need to. Nothing about the ingame world connects to 2019.

[McCavity]

Having continued to RP in Paragon Chat for several years,  here's my take on what 'happened'. 

In 2012 (or game-time equivalent), warnings began to be issued that weakening of the dimensional barriers from all the portals was now being predicted to potentially cause catastrophic dimensional rifts to tear open all across the world, literally pulling it apart.  As the warnings continued to escalate, many - civilians and Supers alike - fled to other dimensions and/or worlds via the portals.

 

Some few, however, chose to remain and face whatever happened.  My main Heroes did just that, choosing to stay in Paragon and wait it out.

 

My Villains had varied reactions.  Some fled, others went to ground, and some chose to 'ride it out' in Pocket D, drinks in hand, with faith that if anyplace could survive the apocalypse, DJ Zero's Pocket D could.

 

And in the end.... it seemed the threat was greatly exxagerated and nothing happened, save that the world has been greatly depopulated. 

 

Now, as people begin finding their way home, it remains to be seen if life will 'go on as usual', or if change will bring new beginnings - and new adventures.

[Heraclea]

It happens to every epic hero.  Heraclea had been commanded by the inscrutable gods to spend seven years in the Underworld.  There, she carried out a secret mission whose details cannot be revealed to mere mortals, one which landed her an extended tour of duty on Hyboria, and shorter visits to even stranger worlds.  Her stay there changed her in fundamental ways.  (Which is why she is now Dark Melee instead of Super Strength.)

 

A few others survived this secret apocalypse intact.  Grandma Gnosis made it, but she too had changed, and somehow merged with William Shakespeare during the process.  (It wasn't comfortable.)  Maiden Heaven has returned unchanged.  Yansan returned as Oya Iyansan.  But so many -- Melaena, Hypsiste, Damage Cushion, Toxotes, Mayahuel, Wolf Witch, Baroness Munchhausen -- vanished during the inexplicable event.  Others, like Betsy Ross, seemed to have been pulled into parallel universes.  But in the mean time, Heraclea made new allies: Carlos Rey, Catrina Calaveras, SheRo.  There is no explanation for what happened.  She remains determined to pick up the pieces and carry on.

[Sable Phoenix]

I think acknowledging a real-time gap of any kind gives NCSoft more power than they deserve.

 

The shutdown was nothing to do with any in-universe event or faction.  It was purely because corporate blindness in our world.

 

Just because we weren't granted a window into the world of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles for the last 8 years doesn't mean it ground to a halt that whole time.  The denizens of that universe continued to live their lives as normal without our interference.  We come back to a world that's changed subtly (I25), but not substantially, from where we last saw it, and as far as I'm concerned, we pick up the game exactly where it left the story.  Battalion is a looming but nebulous threat that may or may not ever come to fruition and everything else is pretty much business as usual.

[GamerKate]

I used to RP mainly through my MA in-character review thread (now starting again in the MA forum), and I’m (like a lot of is I guess) recreating my old toons, and I plan on slowly allowing them to realise that something odd has happened, ie they’re now strangely deposered compared to their memories of what they were.

 

OOC, I’m overjoyed to be able to use this ‘reboot’ of them all to explore the content again, and when I’m writing their IC reviews of MA arcs, I’m sure they’ll tell me through the writing how they discover whatever crazy occurrence happened in Paragon way back when :)

 

MCM

[RagabashMoon]

I mostly have seen it as the Battalion haven't arrived yet.  Maybe they will if the Homecoming team goes that route, maybe they won't.  For the most part when I remake chararacters, they are the same, however one I did change from being an Empath/Psi Defender to a Peacebringer, however even that is something that I say happened recently. She's RP wise still an Empath/Psi, but she merged with a Kheldian and so now her Empath powers just 'color' her Peacebringer energy (most of her costumes I use a green color for her powers)

[Oryo]

A few of my characters, that wound up in the novel I am writing, are reboots, technically, rather than attempt to continue half forgotten storylines. I picked up their stories a couple of months after I finished the establishing storyline in my novel (Needing to write more before I try to set it loose on Amazon.) I explain their presence here as they also commute via portals as needed (one of their number is a mage) from their current home base...which is how a couple of them are currently in an academy for those who are learning to use their powers. (I am helping my husband with his SG group).

 

Another toon is a total reboot from the last time around on Live.

 

Still another was on the drawing board when Live was shuttered, and I am now playing him from time to time. I really need to bug the devs though for a costume part. It's hard to play a toon named Cold Shoulder when you can't find a shirt that would cover only one shoulder for men.

 

Only one character has carried over from Live with her story more or less intact and not rebooted, and that is partly because she is a time/dimensional traveler. Picked her storyline up after her husband on Live passed on (although if his player shows up, things are gonna get really wibbly wobbly and timey wimey really fast...)

[OmegaX123]

I like OP's concept, and it actually seems like it meshes well (in a 'hey, it doesn't conflict, so why not?' sense) with Ms Reborn's story (M2 remembers the 'Crisis', but not really any specifics, and no recollection whatsoever of what happened to him at the end of it or in the time since, so it could easily be that no time actually passed for him, he was pulled into a rift of some sort - by Ouroboros Menders trying to save a potential lynchpin in a 'stable' future maybe? - and into this 'new' Paragon City with his memories partially wiped/scrambled).

[Felis Noctu]

Honestly, unless your character has a reason to be directly tied to the in-universe timeline, you don't really need to force it. There's definitely an advantage of having an overarching concept of what happened of course, but it doesn't necessarily need to be directly referenced in every case.

 

Most of the "main characters" in my collection have seen casual RP outside of CoH since everything went kaput, so my interpretation and personal approach so far has just been that the time happened, but nothing else was set in stone. WHEN that time happened is a somewhat sliding case. Basically, 6 years or so of semi-canon side stories happened that filled them out a bit more, and then I'm just going with the flow from there. I never really based my characters around actual in-universe as a hard foundation: they were always just "there" and would react as necessary, but generally had their own thing going on.

 

A large part of that is because I rarely chose to actually care what was going on unless it was a HUGE event of some kind. I'll probably continue that habit now and, even if some consensus is reached amongst the community as to how everything's gone down (time-skip, no time-skip, alternate reality shards, whatever), it's unlikely to really affect my characters all that much. The advantages of playing outside of a hard timeline. :P

 

 

 

- My namesake now has the mindset of a teen instead of a child, albeit one that's been left to just do whatever they want, and so is basically undefinable by the alignment system. Her mood still dictates her actions, and she's still a total wildcard.

- My perpetual energy scientist who created a reality-manipulating life form has settled into the new body it "gifted" her with, and is also now aware that it is in fact self-aware, if unsure of what's considered socially acceptable. It has good intentions but doesn't always act on them correctly, and she's trying to teach it.

- My "may actually be a reincarnation of Wukong" monkey girl who merged with her Praetorian double in a dimensional flux event is still training, like any martial artist. She used to be a part of the Teen Phalanx, who are obviously no longer teens, and may try to seek them out again.

- My genetically modified amnesiac teen turned lightning bug has lost her adoptive mothers for non-IC-explained reasons. She's alone and isolated again, and struggling to deal with being given an only partially-formed "hive mind" of which she's the only living unit as well as her lack of understanding of the world.

- My Hellion b**** queen who was given a deal during the second Rikti Invasion to help in exchange for release on closely monitored probation has now settled into a hero...ish role. She likes the fact that she can set people on fire without being hunted for it, as long as it's the RIGHT people.

- My magus has been too busy with her arcane experiments in her lab to care what's been happening with the outside world. Mortal mundane worries are beneath her. That includes the destruction of the planet/universe/timeline/whatever, since her private space exists within a pocket dimension of her own creation, with anchors in several shards of the multiverse. "Whelp, there goes another one."

- My cyborg cat-burglar with a heart of gold was laying low for a few years to get the heat off and is now back to her old antics. There's always homeless and orphans due to the actions of heroes and villains alike, and plenty of people who could afford to help and choose not to. She'll keep choosing for them whether they like it or not.

[Gravimetric]

My personal headcanon is that an Infinite Crisis-type event shattered reality, severing and isolating a small conglomeration of parallel universes from the rest of the old multiverse and cutting them off from the progression of linear time. These para-universes existed separately, and their inhabitants were in stasis, until two para-universes drifted near one another in the quantum realm and linked, like two cells forming. Now that enough para-universes have linked through quantum attraction, linear time has asserted itself within each realm, bringing inhabitants out of their stasis and enabling travel throughout this new and fragile multiverse. Certain places and people are fixed nexii which the multiverse recreates in its evolution toward cosmic sentience, sometimes in different forms than previously encountered, following different roads than historically recorded.

 

My alts have transitioned to different universes (the live servers) and almost all of them are unaware that anything has gone amiss with their lives or the world in which they live. A few sensitives know something isn't right but their subconscious won't violate their instinct for self-preservation. Only those of a Magic Origin have a chance of determining The Truth, but the discovery would most likely drive them insane (this has happened with two of my alts.)