CoH What If...?

[Techwright]

Marvel's What If...? launches in mere hours on Disney+, telling tales of what would happen if the established MCU storyline played out differently somehow in endless alternate timelines.  CoH does have something like this via Portal Corp, especially the Praetorian universe, but just for fun, what would you think might make an interesting twist on the official CoH lore?  All I ask is that you keep it focused on the CoH/CoV universe.  No "What if Synapse met the Flash and Quicksilver?"

 

 

[TraumaTrain]

What if Atlas Park was destroyed instead of Galaxy City?

[GraspingVileTerror]

Then we would be on the correct timeline, rather than the one which Silos fudged up, @TraumaTrain.

[TombTyrant]

What If... Statesman killed Darrin Wade? What if Wade was wrong about the strength of Marcus's convictions, and Statesman responded to the death of his daughter with immediate lethal force? With Wade dead before the scope of his plans was known, would public faith in the Freedom Phalanx founder? Would he be placed on trial for murder? How would the rest of the Phalanx and the player characters react?

[Lusiphur Malache]

My biggie is what if Atlas had failed.

[Xiddo]

What if... The Rikti won?
The mission failed. Most of the humans fall, nearly all the heroes died, but pockets of resistance remain. A scientist at one of these underground camps notices something strange, an alternate dimension filled with life, and they ever have a Statesman. Can he be convinced to come right our wrongs? What will the Rikti do when there's another world to conquer?

Featuring: transformed (Hero One style) Freedom Phalanx members, the Clockwork King's psychic powers imbued into a separatist group of Rikti drones, Croatoa: land of the refugees - the magical lands help hold back the Rikti forces and the warring monsters have found peace in the face of a singular enemy, Infernal joins the CoT and leads them on a march to the Rikti Dropshops, and Stefan Richter has been quietly hiding - like a huntsman spider - gathering Mu forces...

[cranebump]

What if Dream Doctor died turning back the Rikti? End game sure looks different.

Edited August 11, 2021 by cranebump

[JasperStone]

What if we had a Lady Ghost Widow instead of Lord Recluse....

 

[Ironblade]

What if the Well of the Furies had been contaminated and both Marcus Cole and Stefan Richter died after drinking from it?

[Techwright]

Boy oh boy, I was hoping for a few interesting ideas, but y'all have some great imaginations!  I'm liking what I'm seeing. 😎

[Xiddo]

What if… Clamor succeeded?

When the bomb went off the water in Independence Port was vaporised (Lusca is a husk you can visit), thousands evacuated, millions of Inf worth of damage, the power grid died, then the chaos began.

 

IP and parts of Kings and Steel are a wasteland. SERAPH have set up hubs in those cities, giving you radiation shields, so you can do missions to find survivors and collect samples. Crey and the freakshow have moved into IP, the Skulls are taking advantage in Kings and looting, and the Council are on a recruitment drive with the disillusioned in Steel.

When the power went, prisoners from The Zig broke out and the stretched PPD have brought in Longbow forces to help hold back the riots. 

But what happened to Clamor? Could she have survived? And what would that mean for the hierarchy of the Freaks if Dreck is knocked down a peg…

[Zhym]

19 hours ago, TombTyrant said:

What If... Statesman killed Darrin Wade? What if Wade was wrong about the strength of Marcus's convictions, and Statesman responded to the death of his daughter with immediate lethal force? With Wade dead before the scope of his plans was known, would public faith in the Freedom Phalanx founder? Would he be placed on trial for murder? How would the rest of the Phalanx and the player characters react?

What if Manticore realized he had a whole bunch of non-lethal options in his quiver?

 

What if the player had any effect at all over what happens in Who Will Dieeee?!?!?!?!1?

Edited August 11, 2021 by Zhym

[TombTyrant]

I'm not trying to critique the writing, I am trying to honor the intention of the OP. Please do likewise.

[Marine X]

What if Stefan Richter had become Statesman?

 

What if Ruladak escaped the Shadow Shard?

 

What if the Shivans had invaded Paragon City in 1989?

[Techwright]

On 8/12/2021 at 11:48 AM, Marine X said:

What if Stefan Richter had become Statesman?

 

What if Ruladak escaped the Shadow Shard?

 

What if the Shivans had invaded Paragon City in 1989?

I've wondered about the first one on previous occasions.  I think it a good alt-universe tale.

 

You lost me on 1989.  Was there something specific to Paragon lore in 1989, or were you just picking a random earlier date, possibly to show the city and heroes less prepared?

Edited August 14, 2021 by Techwright

[DarkWings]

Bear with me here but I have too much questions!

 

What If... Our character got to Excalibur before Black Swan. Would Pendragon become the true hero he was mean't to be?

 

What If... Tyrant or any other ITrial AV won and all incarnates died?

 

What If... CoH never shut down and Cryptic Studios was still here? How expanded would the CoH Lore be? What would we be fighting in the coming storm?

 

What If... Praetoria successfully conquered Primal Earth?

 

What If... Hamidon destroyed Primal Earth and met his Praetorian counterpart who also destroyed Praetoria?

 

What If... The Battalion invaded while the first Rikti War was happening? Would it be a 3 way war?

 

What If... All the dark Gods of the Banished Pantheon (Lughebu, Rambetu, Mot, M'teru, Tomdala, Ullutay) escaped the Spiritual Plane? Would they become the Dark Pantheon rather than the Banished Pantheon

 

What If... Shiva survived getting blown apart by the Nuclear assault in 1989? Would we have a Shiva Raid?

 

What If... Statesman was british instead? Would his hero name be "UnitedKing?"

 

Phew...

[Glacier Peak]

What if the the developers on legacy actually used all of the Rogue Isles map?

 

What if Horace Greene was the hero Peacebringer contact instead of Sunstorm?

 

What if instead of Incarnate powers, the developers back on legacy just removed enhancement diversification?

 

What if the Gargarin Space Station, the Armstrong Moonbase, or just a friggin outerspace zone was actually in game??? Or they completed the launch station!

 

 

 

Okay, last one - what if Michael White actually stayed white? 😆

(Okay, I couldn't find a screenshot of him when he was white, but hopefully someone else here remembers that!)

[GraspingVileTerror]

I think it would be interesting if we had a version of Zeus that was unabashedly hedonistic and self-centred (whether the host was Cole, Richter, or someone else entirely), much more like the version from mythology I am familiar with,

while simultaneously we had a more noble form of Tartarus as the divine punisher of the truest evils and warden of the most dangerous threats.

 

What would THAT have looked like?

[jkwak]

what if they had Kheldians on Praetorian earth

 

seriously i want a playable Praetorian counterpart for Kheldians and arachnos

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by jkwak

[Xiddo]

7 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

 

What if Horace Greene was the hero Peacebringer contact instead of Sunstorm?

 

love this! I hate sun storm.
 

Side thought: I’ve read the comics but not 100% sure what happens to him? The costume looks relatively easy to replicate. Feels like a good AE arc where he’s used his lack of popularity and notoriety to become a brutal vigilante (in the alignment sense) and the other PBs are worried about him “losing the light” and you need to track him down and stop him.

[Snarky]

What if becoming an Incarnate started people on an inevitable slide to evil and madness?

 

Power corrupts.  As people become more and more incarnate powerful their alignment shifts from hero to vigilante to villain to …? 
 

There would be shifts in the incarnate trials and perhaps individual story arcs ( similar to DA and and alignment tips ) that explore the shift

Edited August 14, 2021 by Snarky

[Zhym]

I'm generally not a huge fan of most of the overarching game lore—it seems like the more a story has to do with the lore, the less agency a player has (I'm looking at you, Who Will Die?).  And the game has already explored a lot of "What if?" through Praetoria ("What if Statesman were evil?") and time-travel portals ("What if Recluse won?").  But there are a few things where the existence of Ouroboros raises not only "What if?" questions but, "Why not?"  The most obvious is, yes, the death of major NPCs, which the existence of Ouroboros complicates (usually resulting in some sort of timey-wimey rationalizations of why although we can change history, these events can't be changed).  But almost any story arc offers a "what if?"

 

For example, what if someone traveled back in time to prevent the development of portal technology on Primal Earth, thus preventing contact with Praetorian Earth?  Does Praetoria continue on peacefully (if oppressively) under Cole's truce with Hamidon?  Does the lack of portal technology change Primal Earth in any way, save for incarnates having a lot less to do?  

 

The First Ward story arc is also one where, once a character has gone through it all, there are several places where someone who finds out what was happening all along might want to go back in time and change a few things, or at least avoid some forms of carnage (I mean, at the very least you might be able to save Katie Douglas some additional trauma).

 

As far as I know, there's only one flashback arc (Laura Lockhart's) that really plays with the implications of time travel.  It's really well done though, IMO.

 

And this isn't really a "go back and change the past" what-if, but what if Praetorian characters could stay loyalists when they come to Primal Earth?  The options now are to go hero or villain, but either way, they eventually end up opposing Cole's invasion.  But what if they, I dunno, agree that the invasion is necessary for the survival of both Earths?  It would be interesting to have dueling iTrials: some trying to stop the invasion, some trying to make it happen.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Zhym

[Marine X]

12 hours ago, Techwright said:

You lost me on 1989.

According to the Lore, 1989 is when the Meteors brought the Shivans to Bloody Bay, The "What If" was if there was a different target, namely Paragon City. The Galaxy City Tutorial has that zone destroyed by Shivan Meteors in current times, thought it would be interesting if Paragon City was the Original Target of the 1989 Event.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Marine X

[Techwright]

8 minutes ago, Marine X said:

According to the Lore, 1989 is when the Meteors brought the Shivans to Bloody Bay, The "What If" was if there was a different target, namely Paragon City. The Galaxy City Tutorial has that zone destroyed by Shivan Meteors in current times, thought it would be interesting if Paragon City was the Original Target of the 1989 Event.

Thanks!  Makes good sense now.

[Xiddo]

What if… the Contamination spread?

The first recorded case was in Atlas Park hospital. They tracked it back to one Water Blasting villain who had been near the toxic cesspool in Mercy.
The blaster hadn’t been exhibiting symptoms. They’d just harnessed the poisoned water in the area, it replicated inside their body, and they became a super-spreader. Every hydro blast and aqua bolt leaving little traces inside people.

 

They’d robbed Atlas’ bank, taking out members of the PPD. It was gestating inside Lt. Humphries when Ms Liberty came to visit him in hospital during a PR campaign. It took one comforting hand hold and she’d picked up a small amount. It took a few days but he and his team changed overnight, the civilians around the bank, the staff at the hospital, then the young heroes who’d gone in for treatment.
 

In no time, Atlas was the new Outbreak. When Liberty finally changed, they evacuated and locked it down. But it was too late…

 

(In no way was I thinking about anything happening in real life)