Terra Volta - Security Nightmare

[Go0gleplex]

One of the things that just has ya thinking after a while.

 

Terra Volta has got to be the worst secured nuclear reactor, if not the world, the US. The access road is unusable and needlessly round-about, the place is overrun by hostile forces left, right, and center when by rights the National Guard or Marines should be entrenched around it...and it's an absolute wonder that the whole place hasn't gone ingloriously Ka-BOOOM! yet since no one can get in to maintain it other than the odd hero group now and then. 

 

I mean, sure the Rikti hit hard and things were a mess after...but logically, securing your nuclear reactor, and thereby the safety of the entire City and a good chunk of Eastern seaboard should've been in the top three priorities on THE LIST rather than letting it languish in a constant state of crisis. I think the voters need a bit less of Cole's imported water. 😉 

[biostem]

A lot of stuff regarding Paragon City doesn't make sense - I chalk it up to "Comic Book Logic (tm)", where bureaucrats are still more concerned with getting reelected or lining their own pockets, despite a recent alien invasion, multiple paramilitary groups operating openly within the city, and all the other villain groups operating with impunity on the city streets...

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Let's keep the discussion on CoH and not real world politics, please.

[MTeague]

Baumton still being a wrecked urban wasteland a full GENERATION of voters later still irks me. 

On the flip side though, it's impressive that none of those skyscrapers leaning at 30 degrees or more have actually snapped / collapsed yet.

 

And who the heck actually chooses to live in Paragon City, and why? You'd think with crime so rampant, with literal demons from Hell being sighted on a regular basis, along with actual alien invasions (Rikti and Shivans/Galaxy City), cross dimensional war (Praetoria's attack on Skyway), and all the rest, people would decide you know what, let's take another look Peoria, Illinois. Or Omaha, Nebraska. Or at least a few hundred miles up / down the coast?

 

[biostem]

24 minutes ago, MTeague said:

who the heck actually chooses to live in Paragon City, and why?

Do we ever get a clear picture of what life is like outside of Paragon City or the Rogue Isles?  Clearly the two are hotspots for superpowered individuals and organizations, but I have to imagine that there are still superheroes and villains all over the place...

[Go0gleplex]

Not just Boomtown....Faultline's buildings and soils would've become a massive landslide pit due to mass loading and the soil seeking a self-sustaining grade. 

 

I know it's comic logic...there's so much of Paragon that can't be anything but. Unfortunately my engineering gene likes to remind me of things almost constantly. lol There's no way an actually competent engineer/planner would design a neighborhoods of a city so haphazardly after all...or with such expensive infrastructure. Accounting would be living out of the ICU! :p lol

 

Outside of Praetoria too. Like...where does the food for the city come from if Hami is everywhere? It has ports but for what reason if it's the last vestige of civilization? Paragon at least has Croatoa's farms and the Soylent Green (grin) facilities in Crey's Folly in addition to the ports in IP and Talos.  

[MTeague]

Praetoria, there is talk of other cities in game lore, so I don't think it's necessarily the last bastion of the human race. 

But I'm sure Praetorian Hami is more than capable of munch-a-bunch-fritos-go-with-lunch the moment it decides it's bargain with Cole is no longer worth honoring.

 

Which... I believe, technically happens with the Magisterium Trial?

Not sure though. I mean, First Ward certainly got wrecked at some point, and there's a good window of time between that and the stream of refuguees to Primal Earth.

 

Timelines are fuzzy, and likely self-contradicting. Doesn't help we all do time-travel via Ouroborus and create a gazillion alternate histories.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

And who the heck actually chooses to live in Paragon City, and why? You'd think with crime so rampant, with literal demons from Hell being sighted on a regular basis, along with actual alien invasions (Rikti and Shivans/Galaxy City), cross dimensional war (Praetoria's attack on Skyway), and all the rest, people would decide you know what, let's take another look Peoria, Illinois. Or Omaha, Nebraska. Or at least a few hundred miles up / down the coast?

 

Paragon City is enclosed in War Walls which apparently are more there to keep the Rikti in than to keep them from getting into Paragon City.

 

The only ways out appears to be to go to the the Rogue Isle (and other countries are going to be very hesitant to allow you to travel to them from the Rogue Isles.), you could try to escape into the Shadow Shard (but I think most civilians wouldn't have access to it), traveling to another dimension (via Portal Corps ... even though there is never a receptionist or a guard at the security desk, I figure most citizens wouldn't want to take the risk of going to some strange alternate dimension) and then there is time travel (I don't call there being NPCs in Ouroboros and I don't think the denizens of THE CITY would want to give up their modern tech to live in Cimerora even if the Midnighters gave them access.)

The citizens in Paragon City are essential held hostage inside the War Walls and many of them seem to be accustomed to it.

 

Rikti bombing? Oh, just another day in Paragon City! It never gets boring around here.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:08 AM by UltraAlt

[MTeague]

"In Vault 101 Paragon City, no one ever enters... and no one ever leaves....", eh?

[TheMoneyMaker]

you would think that with how important the war walls are to defend against the Rikti that the zone should be full of Rikti and Vanguard fighting it out, with Vanguard strategically positioned around the reactor building

[Snarky]

10 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Let's keep the discussion on CoH and not real world politics, please.

so i shouldn't mention this?

Diablo Canyon earthquake vulnerability - Wikipedia

[tidge]

Terra Volta as a zone has always bothered me... initially because of the internal geography and the sort of random nature of the enemy groups(*1) (even considering the first two respecs)... it just feels like whatever ideas to make it make sense were only considered at the 5% level. The history plaques make less sense to me than almost any other Hazard Zone. There is so little apparent connection between what appears in TV versus what appears in IP that I've always been bothered by it.

 

(*1) Sky Raiders make some sense to me... but only if they are somehow leveraging manufacturing within the zone.  I like them in Striga much more. Freaks/Lost/DE just feel like random "who'd appreciate a destroyed zone?" add-ins.

[Techwright]

12 hours ago, biostem said:

Do we ever get a clear picture of what life is like outside of Paragon City or the Rogue Isles?  Clearly the two are hotspots for superpowered individuals and organizations, but I have to imagine that there are still superheroes and villains all over the place...

 

We get some text to the idea.  I don't recall specifics, but Paragon City is a hotspot for a reason:  there's some sort of supernatural force acting on it.  Something like an attractant for power.  It's why the CoT built their underground city in P.C.    I point this out because, by implication, even other large cities will not have incredible numbers of super-powered types, more like 1 team or even 1 person as the protecting hero.  

 

Side note:  This info was partial fuel for a challenge I issued back during COVID, to have players create the lore for the large Prime world. (It was a largely ignored challenge, but that's okay.) My own submission stuck with this concept of large, fictional city but only supported by one small team.

 

 

I believe we also have lore suggesting the world at large was hit by the Rikti invasion, but that it was the various countries militaries that fought back, and the lion's share of the onslaught and destruction was focused on Paragon City.  Lastly, I think we have some missions implying we're working with a foreign hero or villain on foreign soil, but we still use the same instance maps. 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

so i shouldn't mention this?

Diablo Canyon earthquake vulnerability - Wikipedia

 

Just kidding!  Don't vamp out . . . again . . . 

[KC4800]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Terra Volta as a zone has always bothered me... initially because of the internal geography and the sort of random nature of the enemy groups(*1) (even considering the first two respecs)... it just feels like whatever ideas to make it make sense were only considered at the 5% level. The history plaques make less sense to me than almost any other Hazard Zone. There is so little apparent connection between what appears in TV versus what appears in IP that I've always been bothered by it.

 

(*1) Sky Raiders make some sense to me... but only if they are somehow leveraging manufacturing within the zone.  I like them in Striga much more. Freaks/Lost/DE just feel like random "who'd appreciate a destroyed zone?" add-ins.

Plus, it's bigger on the inside than the outside, like the Tardis.

[Go0gleplex]

Yeah...all those manufacturing and tech companies inside Terra would be especially dependent on keeping the bridge and other accesses clear and...well...accessible. Both for supplies, workers, and shipments out. 

 

The DE, if supposedly contained (or is that just Hami itself) in some of the more distant zones from the Hive like Crey's Folly and IP don't really make sense. That they're in Founders I can see but the walls would make  the islands in Talos and them showing up in the Rogues questionable as well...unless someone was absolutely insane enough to...export...th...never mind. >< 

[PostalExpress]

9 hours ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

you would think that with how important the war walls are to defend against the Rikti that the zone should be full of Rikti and Vanguard fighting it out, with Vanguard strategically positioned around the reactor building

 

Right. Like the Rogue Isles has Arachnos Soldiers guarding their power plant on Cap.

[MTeague]

17 hours ago, Snarky said:

so i shouldn't mention this?

I mean, there's something to be said for "Get as excited over that as you want, rally people over it as much as you feel it's merited, but not HERE."

 

Ultimately, we're somewhere between patrons in a pub, and guests in a house. 

If the host wants me to steer clear of a topic, I will at least while I'm there.

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I mean, there's something to be said for "Get as excited over that as you want, rally people over it as much as you feel it's merited, but not HERE."

 

Ultimately, we're somewhere between patrons in a pub, and guests in a house. 

If the host wants me to steer clear of a topic, I will at least while I'm there.

Honestly that was just a lulz.  I am probably wrong (i usually am) but i do not consider criticism of horrid engineering choices political.  Everything is these days however.  So, I move on…

[Healix]

Terra Volta has always been one of my least favorite zones for so many reasons, least of all the difficulty of getting around on a low character.