A tale as old as time

[Glacier Peak]

What are your favorite time travel story arcs or missions in City of Heroes and why? Use the spoiler tab if you're going in to detail please!

 

My favorite story arc involving time travel in the game is offered by Laura Lockhart. I won't say why, but it's a great example of how to make a player care about what's happening! Most of the time I'll also just accept it as common place in the game since it was introduced in Issue 1 via Portal Corps (**I think this was actually more multiverse than time travel though) and further expanded when Faultline was updated. But I'll say I'm also not a fan of stories outside of CoH that use time travel as a blatant fix for bad story telling, but my favorite movie trilogy is still Back to the Future. Groundhogs Day is another classic. Tenet was a good take on the sub-genre(?) too. Marvel started to percolate my distaste for said plot devices after Quantmanium.

 

**Edit: Brian Webb was known for discovering other dimensions, not time travel. See my post on this below. 

 

Edited February 12 by Glacier Peak

[Snarky]

My favorite CoH time travel story is one I made up myself.  So good I am currently reusing it.

 

From my perspective (a gamer) the CoH world is static. You can run through it, but not really change it much. Also, there are the Menders and Ouroboros.

 

This led me to postulate the Menders had placed CoH in a "time bottle" sealed away.  So a future culture sent a robot probe to investigate.  My last "solo all arcs and contacts" was this robot probe.

 

I am redoing this theme with Snarky the Vampire, from the future when he is a demi lich.  He wants to know why the Menders have done this and sends himself back though time into the "time bottle" to investigate the world (solo everything)

[KC4800]

I went back in time to when Clark^TM Bars were a thing for real, and I wouldn't have to try to jiggle them out of old, abandoned vending machines. Oh, you fiend!! You're not even fresh!!

Edited February 12 by KC4800
sp.

[dtjunkie]

Fun Topic!

 

Agree 1000% that Laura Lockhart is the best use of Ouroboros and I wish there were more opportunities like this.

 

Most realistic time travel movie: Primer. So fascinating and confusing!

 

Best time travel novel: Replay by Ken Grimwood.

 

I have a concept I've been running in CoX similar to the time travel that occurs in Replay. Started with a Rad/BS tank named Atom Slicer. When he dinged 50, he found himself standing in front of Ms. Liberty, back at level one, but this time his radiation powers manifested as a Blaster. Once Atom Gunner hit 50, he once again found himself standing in front of Ms. Liberty, back at level one, this time as a Staff/Rad Brute. This irritated Atom Fury so he became a vigilante and then a villain. Once Atom Fury dinged 50, he was once again level one, but this time he found himself standing in front of Kalinda in Mercy. Atom Specter is a Illusion/Rad controller. I'm just going to keep going until I play all the rad powersets across the ATs. The costume stays the same and the name will always start with Atom.

 

 

[Techwright]

You do realize the greatest one we'll never recall because it was erased from history, yes?

 

At least, I think it was.  All I have left is a polaroid with these slowly fading feet where people ought to be.

 

Edited February 13 by Techwright

[Infinitum]

14 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

My favorite story arc involving time travel in the game is offered by Laura Lockhart.

I second this. It's simply fantastic and gets an emotional response from me every time - especially at the beginning - I actually think I have a shot at changing the first outcome and end up disappointed every single time. 

 

No mission puts me in the game like this one does. 

[DoctorDitko]

Yeah. Laura's a heartbreaker for sure!

And the Ouro twist is my favorite plotline ever!

 

Nigh-Whovian, one might say.*

 

* Moffat, not Davies.

Edited February 13 by DoctorDitko

[Clave Dark 5]

The only one that comes to mind is that Morality Mission, which I think is a redside or Vig maybe where you keep meeting yourself further and further in the future, the final version of you being from like ten thousand years ahead when you have godly powers and your future you cautions you something like <I>this immortality isn't everything you might hope it is, please reconsider this!</I> I appreciated it if for no other reason that it was clear that they'd really made an effort to hire some better writing right about that time and and that it was paying off.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I'm not usually a fan of time travel stories, or alternate realities for that matter

 

But truthfully the whole Ouroboros thing, which was created for characters to run content they had missed, is a truly inventive and imaginative solution to solving that issue and some of the spin off stories can be very fun as well.

[Glacier Peak]

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I'm not usually a fan of time travel stories, or alternate realities for that matter

 

But truthfully the whole Ouroboros thing, which was created for characters to run content they had missed, is a truly inventive and imaginative solution to solving that issue and some of the spin off stories can be very fun as well.

I really thought the same thing regarding Ouroboros when it was first rolled out on live. I really liked the Easter egg "notes" left during mender stories. 

[dtjunkie]

More Laura Lockhart thoughts!

 

Spoiler

If I were running things I would have an Evil Leaper, er Evil Mender, give out a mission to villains to stop a hero from using Ouroboros to save Laura. Instead of putting things right that once went wrong, we'd be putting things wrong that were once made right. I'd probably have the heroes be the Shining Stars.