Is It Time to Resurrect Statesman?

[LightMaster]

15 hours ago, keyguardactive said:

I think we let Marcus Cole stay dead, but I wouldn't mind a Legacy story where someone else takes up the mantle, Reign of the Supermen/Battle for the Cowl style. Maybe Tyrant even IS one of the Statesmen running around. Miss Liberty is Stateswoman. Eventually it goes to, I don't know, Foreshadow. 

Sounds like a good idea. We don’t need Tyrant pull a heel-face turn given everything wrong he has done and his illusional ambitions, but instead an attempt that may seem he turned into a new leaf, but turned out to be another of his power-hungry conquest, even if he’a not as big of a threat as he was before. Maybe he’ll pull a sincere one down the line, but not at the point where Praetorian Hamidon and eventually the Battalion (ya know, the planned Coming Storm?) are among to worry about.

 

Oh yeah, no doubt that the Crey Corp. will try their hands on making their own Statesman that may or may not go rogue. I met at least one toon based on the concept of a Statesman / Stateswoman made by Cray Corp.

[Darmian]

20 minutes ago, LightMaster said:

Oh yeah, no doubt that the Crey Corp. will try their hands on making their own Statesman

Considering Statesman was a very public figure for the best part of a century I'd be very surprised if Crey didn't already have his DNA profile mapped somewhere.  The snag being that if they made a clone then that clone never had access to the Well of the Furies. 

[Steampunkette]

I think the time to bring back Statesman will be in the middle of the Battalion storyline.

 

We're fighting our butts off but get pushed all the way back to Armstrong Base on the moon and it looks like we're going to fail and the Battalion will reach Earth...

 

And then NuStatesman in a newly designed "Modern and Updated" Statesman Costume comes to punch a Battalion Warship out of orbit. EVERYONE goes crazy and cheers and is confused.

 

And then it's revealed to be Emperor Cole taking up the mantle to try and protect -this- world, since he failed to protect his.

[golstat2003]

4 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

I think the time to bring back Statesman will be in the middle of the Battalion storyline.

 

We're fighting our butts off but get pushed all the way back to Armstrong Base on the moon and it looks like we're going to fail and the Battalion will reach Earth...

 

And then NuStatesman in a newly designed "Modern and Updated" Statesman Costume comes to punch a Battalion Warship out of orbit. EVERYONE goes crazy and cheers and is confused.

 

And then it's revealed to be Emperor Cole taking up the mantle to try and protect -this- world, since he failed to protect his.

 

I would laugh out loud, as that would be diabolical.

[Steampunkette]

9 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

I would laugh out loud, as that would be diabolical.

I meeeean... Kinda. Kinda diabolical. But mostly just fits the narrative arc of comic book characters. The villain takes up the heroic mantle, in time. Like Superior Spider-Man when Otto Octavius stole Peter's body and became more and more aware of how important Peter's morals and restraint had been. And eventually he just straight up tries to become a hero.

[Darmian]

19 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

I think the time to bring back Statesman will be in the middle of the Battalion storyline.

 

We're fighting our butts off but get pushed all the way back to Armstrong Base on the moon and it looks like we're going to fail and the Battalion will reach Earth...

 

And then NuStatesman in a newly designed "Modern and Updated" Statesman Costume comes to punch a Battalion Warship out of orbit. EVERYONE goes crazy and cheers and is confused.

 

And then it's revealed to be Emperor Cole taking up the mantle to try and protect -this- world, since he failed to protect his.

There's plenty of aggro aimed at Dream Doctor for swooping in for the kill in Dilemma Diaibolique.  Player Agency is important and this would negate it.

[Steampunkette]

2 minutes ago, Darmian said:

There's plenty of aggro aimed at Dream Doctor for swooping in for the kill in Dilemma Diaibolique.  Player Agency is important and this would negate it.

I don't think it would NEGATE it if he came in and punched A warship out of orbit.

 

If he did everything for us, sure. But holding down the fort at Earth while we push into enemy territory to continue the fight? Wouldn't be too much.

 

Also of note: That's the plot of Statesman's presence in Master X Master.

 

https://masterxmaster.fandom.com/wiki/Statesman

 

 

So. Y'know. >.>

 

YMMV.

[Forager]

17 hours ago, keyguardactive said:

Eventually it goes to, I don't know, Foreshadow. 

 

Or maybe they give it to Manticore and the costume is all baggy.

[Darmian]

22 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

So. Y'know. >.>

 

YMMV.

I do know, and yes, MMMV LOL.

 

It varies very much from what I consider to be a total BS move to shoehorn a pre-existing IP Icon into something else in the possible hope of dragging the previously dedicated COH base to MXM.  But hey, corporate gonna corporate, y' know 😉 But hey, I'm just spitballing my take here.

 

And if they had gone ahead with it, it was easy to plant it as a fait accompli and let it run.  Can't see HC doing that here. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Darmian

[El D]

44 minutes ago, Darmian said:

There's plenty of aggro aimed at Dream Doctor for swooping in for the kill in Dilemma Diaibolique.  Player Agency is important and this would negate it.

 

Signature NPCs have to do something to justify their presence in the narrative. Almost always that's 'abilities the player-facing mechanics don't allow the players to do' and 'narrative choices the story can't allow player characters to do.' The Incarnate arrangement already has to walk the fine line between 'your PC is super-ultra-mega powerful and destined to become the ultra-greatest-most-powerful character in the setting' and 'so will literally every other character you make and team up with.' Adding in the chaos of 'I killed Diabolique! No, I did!' is just extra nonsense that muddies progression, and that's not even getting into the players who'd opt not to kill her, or reform her, or whatever else.

 

For large-scale MMO storylines like that, the NPCs - at least those on some semblance of equal footing as the player character - have to handle the decisive story beats because that's the only way to control the on-going narrative. Also, if the narrative required that Diabolique was always going to die, then there's no agency taken away from the players anyway. Agency requires the availability of choice. If the hardstop ending is 'Diabolique dies regardless of player desire or action' then there's not even a fake choice there like 'Stab Tielekku or Don't Stab Tielekku' at the end of the Dark Astoria arcs.

Edited 6 hours ago by El D

[Darmian]

6 minutes ago, El D said:

 

Signature NPCs have to do something to justify their presence in the narrative. Almost always that's 'abilities the player-facing mechanics don't allow the players to do' and 'narrative choices the story can't allow player characters to do.' The Incarnate arrangement already has to walk the fine line between 'your PC is super-ultra-mega powerful and destined to become the ultra-greatest-most-powerful character in the setting' and 'so will literally every other character you make and team up with.' Adding in the chaos of 'I killed Diabolique! No, I did!' is just extra nonsense that muddies progression, and that's not even getting into the players who'd opt not to kill her, or reform her, or whatever else.

 

For large-scale MMO storylines like that, the NPCs - at least those on some semblance of equal footing as the player character - have to handle the decisive story beats because that's the only way to control the on-going narrative. Also, if the narrative required that Diabolique was always going to die, then there's no agency taken away from the players anyway. Agency requires the availability of choice. If the hardstop ending is 'Diabolique dies regardless of player desire or action' then there's not even a fake choice there like 'Stab Tielekku or Don't Stab Tielekku' at the end of the Dark Astoria arcs.

I'm not arguing the point that Diabolique dies/had to die, or even in fact that Dream Doctor did it.  But the way it was done relegates the player/team lead to a side line character.  A scene where the team hand her over to Dream Doctor and then he deals with her would IMO have been better. 

[Rudra]

29 minutes ago, Darmian said:

I'm not arguing the point that Diabolique dies/had to die, or even in fact that Dream Doctor did it.  But the way it was done relegates the player/team lead to a side line character.  A scene where the team hand her over to Dream Doctor and then he deals with her would IMO have been better. 

Considering what Diabolique had become, it was either deal with her right then and there or let her recover and mop the floor with anyone you try to hand her over to and escape. Those situations arise a lot in the epic stories in comics and novels. The most BBEG of all BBEGs is defeated, and must be dealt with immediately or else.

[ZeeHero]

19 hours ago, keyguardactive said:

I think we let Marcus Cole stay dead, but I wouldn't mind a Legacy story where someone else takes up the mantle, Reign of the Supermen/Battle for the Cowl style. Maybe Tyrant even IS one of the Statesmen running around. Miss Liberty is Stateswoman. Eventually it goes to, I don't know, Foreshadow. 

The who will die arc already shows that it is Our character who people see as a stand in for Statesmans role as protector, but if you mean just the title, maybe miss liberty would become Stateswoman to honor her grandpas memory?

[El D]

1 hour ago, Darmian said:

I'm not arguing the point that Diabolique dies/had to die, or even in fact that Dream Doctor did it.  But the way it was done relegates the player/team lead to a side line character.  A scene where the team hand her over to Dream Doctor and then he deals with her would IMO have been better. 

 

The characters who are the sole reason he even is able to get in there and shank her are... side-lined? Jumping off of what @Rudra said, the entire arrangement for that trial is 'this needs to be stopped yesterday.' As soon as the incarnates done doing all the difficult stuff no one else is capable of, the Dream Doctor does the one major thing he can do to help eliminate the imminent threat. Having a Scooby-Doo 'everyone mug for the camera as we turn the bad guy over to the cops' ending undercuts the dire stakes of the trial and the need to stop Diabolique and Mot.

[Steampunkette]

I would also like to note, again:

 

Emperor Statesman zooming in at the last second to stop the Warship from reaching Earth as a time-buying maneuver for us to finish the job is WAY DIFFERENT from Emperor Statesman coming in and punching the Battalion to end the entire fight.

 

It also creates a nice historic parallel between the two Coles where they have to punch a spaceship for Earth to survive.

[Steampunkette]

I'd also like to note:

 

It's 'Funny' how these "Bring back Statesman!" threads crop up from time to time referencing how only Uncle Ben gets to stay dead in comics... but not a single one of them even makes mention of Sister Psyche who died in the same arc.

 

Don't you think that's interesting?

[Rudra]

11 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

I'd also like to note:

 

It's 'Funny' how these "Bring back Statesman!" threads crop up from time to time referencing how only Uncle Ben gets to stay dead in comics... but not a single one of them even makes mention of Sister Psyche who died in the same arc.

 

Don't you think that's interesting?

Less interesting and more biased to me.