What is the full story of Praetoria?

[TwoDee]

@huang3721love that you consolidated all of this!  I tried to incorporate bits we know from the civilians into my timeline - like them knowing about First Ward - but I've never actually bothered to just go out and feverishly click on civs to get all the responses.  In particular I love all of the very shallow knowledge of the Hamidon, and of the environmental effects of the nuclear war: like the civs going "my sister said she saw a Hamidon!" or "I had a nice garden, but it's even nicer now after the Decontamination" or "Clean air, clean water, you wouldn't recognize this place from 50 years ago."  It suggests that peoples' memories of the Hamidon Wars are hazy, indistinct, with enough recollection to point out how it sucked to live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but with only a dim grasp of why that was the case.  Ditto folks recognizing the military tattoos on the Destroyers and then going 'nah, couldn't be...'

 

And interesting anachronism: Cole's audience of non-metahuman puppet governors are referred to as Senators in the civilian dialogue, but in Resistance Crusader they're referred to as Magistrates (hence, Magisterum).  I wonder whether the civilian dialogue or the arc was written first, and why they changed the name.

[TwoDee]

A lot of the dialogue also really corroborates the idea that the state ideology of Praetoria was a form of ecofascism, between citizens speaking glowingly of positive environmental change, the purging and replacement of home gardens, and the government cracking down on rogue farmers because of the threat of 'Hamidon spores.'  Not to mention that ominous line from the one citizen about how they'd 'spit on [the Syndicate] but it's illegal to litter,' making sure to exonerate themselves of the potential thoughtcrime of daring to litter.

Edited March 1, 2021 by TwoDee
words

[Darmian]

3 hours ago, TwoDee said:

And interesting anachronism: Cole's audience of non-metahuman puppet governors are referred to as Senators in the civilian dialogue, but in Resistance Crusader they're referred to as Magistrates (hence, Magisterum).  I wonder whether the civilian dialogue or the arc was written first, and why they changed the name.

Unless of course there are actually both? Senators being the ones you can "elect", and the Magistrates being a specific "ruling" body, perhaps more like a local town council rather than actual government.

[TwoDee]

18 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Unless of course there are actually both? Senators being the ones you can "elect", and the Magistrates being a specific "ruling" body, perhaps more like a local town council rather than actual government.

I've been going back through Crusader, so I can dig into it.  I suspect that you're right, that Senators are a faux-democratic elected body of do-nothings, and Magistrates are actual decisionmakers.

[Darmian]

I've just run through Crusader myself, right down to setting off the Neutron bomb 🙂  In the midst of researching for a three part AE Resistance arc set.

[raverbane]

Just wanted to thank TwoDee and all the folks that contributed to this collection of lore.  My current main, a hold over from Live, is a Praetorian in his 50s.  I've always had trouble trying to nail down an accurate and detailed history of what his childhood life was like.  This has been a HUGE help!

[RogerWilco]

Is any/ all of this in the wiki?

It provides a lot of overview and information.

 

Me and my friends have been very confused about the timelines and missions, as they are not chronological with a normal gold side level progression up to Night Ward. You go through the Sheridan portal, and suddenly everyone is talking about a failed invasion by Cole, and refugees. Huh what? And then near Portal Corps, everything shifts in time again.

 

This helped clarify a lot.

 

Also really cool to see those early sketches and previs models. I think if we ever have a lot of time, those could be worked into a separate gold side zone.

I would not make it part of the city, but a separate one, maybe on a different continent even, the place where those ships and planes go to.

Maybe run by a totally different dictatorship, with the syndicate working as the middleman.

[Darmian]

Right.  Scratching my head here. Go talk to Apex about starting his TF, and he says this:

 

"Good to see you're here with a team, Character. My name is Apex, I'm in charge of Vanguard's operations against Praetoria. As you may or may not know, we've got ourselves into another invasion. Looks like people just love to attack Primal Earth, huh? First it was Rikti, now it's Praetoria.

Their first attack was on Terra Volta, and it was bad, Character. Everyone from the Freedom Phalanx was there, fighting tooth and nail against the Praetorian. But, for some reason, everyone but Statesman had all of their abilities drained to the point of being useless. Eventually, Statesman was forced to retreat, and the Praetorians shut down Terra Volta for some time.

That's the odd thing, though. They could've blown it up, but they just chose to shut it down for a time... which means that whatever they wanted to do, they did in that time. This is where you and your team come in, Character."

 

Okaaaay.  So WHEN did the Praetorians attack Terra Volta if Statesman was still alive?  Does "Who Will Die?" happen parallel to the start of the War? Is the attack on Terra Volta mentioned anywhere else at all?

[Kismet Cowboy]

God this is an amazing thread. Kudos to @TwoDee and @huang3721 for the deep dives, they're really great and are deffo gonna help with characters going forward. Going Rogue is what really got me into the game and Praetorian content has always been my favourite, but piecing together the full picture of goldside lore has always been difficult. I honestly think its a shame they quite literally nuked it.

[Latex]

On 5/2/2021 at 6:04 PM, BeeBee said:

<snip> I honestly think its a shame they quite literally nuked it.

 

Yep, it's plausible they had further plans for the zone. I view it equally as interesting as Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, it's the disconnect with timelines that really hinders Roleplayers to, well, Roleplay there, but it suits being an origin story or a dedicated Supergroup area.

[Darmian]

37 minutes ago, Latex said:

 

Yep, it's plausible they had further plans for the zone. I view it equally as interesting as Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, it's the disconnect with timelines that really hinders Roleplayers to, well, Roleplay there, but it suits being an origin story or a dedicated Supergroup area.

I've probably posted this elsewhere but there's some evidence more was planned/planned and cut:

 

 

[MTeague]

I'm still going to hope a good bit of the original dev's future plans for Preatorian Hamidon never come to pass, ever. There are several things they had planned that.... I really think are a poor choice of direction for the story to go in.  I'm fine with Hamidon (from any world) being a planetary-level threat.  But the Lore AMA's about promoting him to a pan-dimensional-reality-spanning-threat that CANNOT be escaped no matter WHICH alternate reality you dream up... frankly, causes a gag reflex in me.  Battalion/Coming Storm aren't any better in my book.

 

I get very salty on those topics however, so I'll jam on the brakes hard there. It's already creeping into rant-mode.

 

I do appreciate that this thread is a great compendium of all existing fixed Goldside info, and one of the better timeline reconciles that I've seen for it. 

• I really wish they would do more with Praetoria in the future. 
• Would love to have seen Old Orlando, or some of the other settlements mentioned in Praetoria. 
• Would love to seen what kind of muscle the Syndicate flexes on a global scale. If they are all the CEO's of all the mega-corps, OK, maybe a direct showdown with Cole was never going to happen, but how much pull did they still have in the real world?
• Given that Mother had to munch on a telepath's personality to make a Seer, how widespread could seers be? Was it mostly just Cole's Capitol and where the Praetors hang out that had seers?  Did Tokyo have any?  at all?  etc.  How much of the seers was essentially in reaction to the Resistance?  Were they not percieved as needed elsewhere?

Certainly by the end of the LIVE story / Number Six arc, Hamidon's had it and gone ballistic, and Cole's lost it, and gone nuts in the name of power.  But I do think there's a lot more they could have done with various enclaves holding out here or there, or just not NOTICED by Hamidon yet, because Hammi was focused on turning Cole into Cole Slaw.

[Darmian]

Also, and I've said this before (on Discord at least) I don't think Neuron is dead.  Sure, Bobcat told us she killed him, but that is literally the only "evidence" of it we have. And it shouldn't be hard for someone with his speed to hide from enemies, especially if no one is looking for him.

[Darmian]

I've had a go at (sideways) tackling a tricky bit of Praetorian/Primal history via an AE. I think I got it to work. I think. "The Spark of the Blind", Arc id 40403. Level 20-24 Pre War Resistance.

[Ankylosaur]

Can vouch that @Darmian's The Spark of the Blind was a great story well told! My Resistance Praetorian felt right at home. 

 

If, like me, you've been troubled with how to explain that the TUNNEL network takes you to a pre-catastrophe Praetoria, you might enjoy my newest arc. I took a stab at explaining that in Ninjas in the Wind in my sig. Definitely not an official premise but ties in tightly to the CoH lore with a splash of the AMA lore thrown in. 

[BrandX]

I always wondered how Primal Earth existing would make Praetoria's Deal with Hamidon a no go.  Another dimension of uncontrolled people, means Hamidon would say, "Deals off"?

[Darmian]

51 minutes ago, BrandX said:

I always wondered how Primal Earth existing would make Praetoria's Deal with Hamidon a no go.  Another dimension of uncontrolled people, means Hamidon would say, "Deals off"?

Not so much their existence I suppose but the fact that Primal is (a) unaware of the deal and (b) has a different relationship with Primal Hamidon due to diverging history. "Negotiate? We beat ours, we can beat this one too."  But who knows Hamidon's response really?  Cole didn't ask/check/consult with his "partner", he just assumed that it would go wrong. I'm not saying he was incorrect to do so, but that's what he did.

[Darmian]

On 2/21/2021 at 6:07 PM, TwoDee said:

City of Heroes: Going Rogue begins in 2010, at the supposed 30th but possibly 15th anniversary of the Praetorian Empire.  In rough order:

1. Maria Jenkins' arc happens.
2. The events of the Tip Missions happen, specifically as relates to Maelstrom and Desdemona.
3. The events of Twinshot's arc happen
4. Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader happen
5. Tina MacIntyre's arc happens, set between the end of Goldside content and the beginning of the Praetorian War.
6. The Praetorian War begins when TinMage iTrial happens.
7. BAF iTrial happens.
8. Lambda Sector iTrial happens.
9. Admiral Sutter TF happens.
10. Keyes Reactor iTrial happens.
11. First Ward (20-30) happens
    1. Concurrently with First Ward, the Underground iTrial happens.
12. Night Ward (30-35) happens
    1. Concurrently with Night Ward, the TPN Campus iTrial happens.
13. Dark Astoria happens, before the formal end of the Praetorian War, but Dominatrix defects to help the Primals.
14. Belladonna Vetrano's arc happens.  Praetoria begins to collapse from the inside.
15. Minds of Mayhem iTrial happens.  Praetoria is falling apart.
16. Magisterum iTrial happens.  In an echo both of the destruction of Shroud City and of the nuclear suicides of several nations during the Hamidon Wars, Cole nukes Praetoria City, killing millions of his own citizens.
17. Praetoria entirely falls, and refugees begin flocking through the former invasion portals into Paragon.
18. The Major's arc happens.
19. Provost Marchand and Mr. G's arcs happen contemporaneously to each other.  The New Praetorians are founded as several Praetorian supervillains escape containment.
20. Number Six's arc happens.

I've been staring at this and staring at this, and rereading and rerunning things - because I'm writing a bunch of dedicated Pre War Praetorian AEs - and I think a tweak or two is needed.  Bear with me, and no guarantee I have this right either!

 

       0. Original Maria Jenkins arc/A Hero's Hero  happens.  (Oh yes it does!)*

 

City of Heroes: Going Rogue begins in 2010, at the supposed 30th but possibly 15th anniversary of the Praetorian Empire.  In rough order:

1. Tina MacIntyre's arc happens.
2. The events of the Tip Missions happen, specifically as relates to Maelstrom and Desdemona.
3. The events of Twinshot's arc happen
4. Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader happen
5. The Praetorian War begins when Terra Volta is attacked.
6. Maria Jenkins arc/A Hero's Epic  happens.**
7. Apex's Alpha Strike TF happens. (30 November 2010)
8. Tin Mage II's TF  happens.
9. BAF iTrial happens.
10. Lambda Sector iTrial happens.
11. Admiral Sutter TF happens.
12. Keyes Reactor iTrial happens.
13. First Ward (20-30) happens
    1. Concurrently with First Ward, the Underground iTrial happens.
14. Night Ward (30-35) happens
    1. Concurrently with Night Ward, the TPN Campus iTrial happens.
15. Dark Astoria happens, before the formal end of the Praetorian War, but Dominatrix defects to help the Primals.
16. Minds of Mayhem iTrial happens.  Praetoria is falling apart.
17. Belladonna Vetrano's arc happens.  Praetoria begins to collapse from the inside.
18. Magisterum iTrial happens.  In an echo both of the destruction of Shroud City and of the nuclear suicides of several nations during the Hamidon Wars, Cole nukes Praetoria City, killing millions of his own citizens.
19. Praetoria entirely falls, and refugees begin flocking through the former invasion portals into Paragon.
20. The Major's arc happens.
21. Provost Marchand and Mr. G's arcs happen contemporaneously to each other.  The New Praetorians are founded as several Praetorian supervillains escape containment.
22. Number Six's arc happens.

 

I've listed the Terra Volta attack as the initial strike by the Praetorians because Apex literally tells you it is. I have Tin Mage II happening after that because he never mentions Terra Volta at all, nor the fact that the reason the Freedom Phalanx isn't around even in a liaison capacity for his TF is because most of them were incapacitated in the Terra Volta attack. They're definitely in a weakened state.  But still strong enough to aid with the Jenkins arc in between.

 

* This has to be when Siege loses his original body, before transferring to a series of copies and finally the large Warwork style casing we see in the incarnate trials. Also concerning "A Hero's Hero":

Spoiler

My own canon for this arc is that it wasn't initiated by Emperor Cole but by Praetor Duncan. Now, this is premised off trying to line up a Praetorian event from before Going Rogue with all we know of Praetoria post Going Rogue. Fiddly but not impossible. Duncan has already killed her mother and is now a single step away from the throne, in her eyes. So can she take out gramps? She'll only get one shot at that. But wait, she can do a test run! There's ANOTHER Marcus Cole out there. And if she pulls it off, manipulating the other Praetors into helping her through whatever means, and ex-Praetor Keyes will do anything she asks of him, then she gets credit for it.  It didn't work and if anything ultimately leads to Praetoria's defeat at the hands of Primal Earth. No biggie, Little Ms Pragmatic defects anyway.  Evidence for all that? Admittedly circumstantial but (a) Cole wouldn't tip his own hand like that. (b) Cole (post Going Rogue) definitely would not have a giant throne room with lava pits. Dominatrix would though, it's entirely her style.  Ergo Cole learns about all this after the fact.

And when "A Hero's Epic" happens, well there's a plan that didn't work against Statesman but should work against a relatively weaker foe.

 

** Maria Jenkins' arc has a glaring half-assed retcon in it that needs removing to make sense of things.

 

 

"rest his soul"!!!  The problem being that Statesman is apparently alive during the events of the Underground iTrial, so this is just carelessness and those three words should be removed.  It would instantly clean up a fair bit.  Oddly enough Jenkins' arc "happening twice" isn't really a problem. As can be seen the above image also verifies that "A Hero's Hero" happened.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Darmian

[NyxiaSnow]

Thank you so much for this, it'll be a great help!  🙂

[Zhym]

On 6/25/2021 at 5:31 PM, Darmian said:

• First Ward (20-30) happens
  1. Concurrently with First Ward, the Underground iTrial happens.
• Night Ward (30-35) happens
  1. Concurrently with Night Ward, the TPN Campus iTrial happens.

Why are First Ward and Night Ward so late in this list?  I always pictured them as basically coming right after the L1-20 Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader arcs. 

[Darmian]

8 minutes ago, Zhym said:

Why are First Ward and Night Ward so late in this list?  I always pictured them as basically coming right after the L1-20 Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader arcs. 

Well, for that you'll have to ask @TwoDee! The original list is his. Any tweaks I applied have been concentrating on the period immediately prior to and just covering the start of the War.

[Zhym]

47 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Well, for that you'll have to ask @TwoDee! The original list is his. Any tweaks I applied have been concentrating on the period immediately prior to and just covering the start of the War.

Understood.  I meant in general, not your list in particular.  I've seen @TwoDee's list, or something like it, a few times and it always has First Ward and Night Ward after several TFs and iTrials, which makes me wonder what I'm missing about the overall story progression.   

[Darmian]

34 minutes ago, Zhym said:

Understood.  I meant in general, not your list in particular.  I've seen @TwoDee's list, or something like it, a few times and it always has First Ward and Night Ward after several TFs and iTrials, which makes me wonder what I'm missing about the overall story progression.   

I've been meaning to look into that further, since FW effectively works as the next zone for Praetorians if they don't take the Rift mission. So, we will see.  It is a grand communal effort to sort things out, back and forth!

[Sunsette]

12 hours ago, Zhym said:

Why are First Ward and Night Ward so late in this list?  I always pictured them as basically coming right after the L1-20 Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader arcs. 

The fact that a different contact from Vanessa DeVore is involved in freeing Katie Douglas from the Seer Network suggests that Vanessa is gone at that point -- maybe not dead, but at the least she went back to Praetoria. Previously Vanessa had insisted she'd take full responsibility for that situation, and personally direct Katie's ire towards her. So I can see First Ward concurrent with Underground, though I'd probably place it a bit earlier.

[Darmian]

22 hours ago, Sunsette said:

The fact that a different contact from Vanessa DeVore is involved in freeing Katie Douglas from the Seer Network suggests that Vanessa is gone at that point -- maybe not dead, but at the least she went back to Praetoria. Previously Vanessa had insisted she'd take full responsibility for that situation, and personally direct Katie's ire towards her. So I can see First Ward concurrent with Underground, though I'd probably place it a bit earlier.

Well, back to Praetoria Proper 🙂 Not quibbling with you, @Sunsette, just a gentle reminder to other readers that First Ward (and Night Ward) are still part of Praetoria...just to one side a bit.