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Recluse is about to discover that Marcus Cole can be a far better head of state then he ever will :lol

You know, in all the various alternate universes, it's always a variation of Statesman who's the Big Good/Big Bad? It's only in Primal Earth that we even hear about Lord Recluse. I'm wondering if this by itself isn't one of Recluse's motivations -- because he's nothing anywhere else...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Apparently, he was there at the Well of the Furies on Praetorian Earth as well, but never left alive. The only other confirmed alternate Cole is Reichsman, who I suspect killed him off, just because. As for alternate Lord Recluses, I suspect they're out there, especially given that the one-of-a-kind approach has already been used with Nemesis. (Yeah, that's apparently Word of God, from what I've found. Nemesis only sprung up on Primal Earth, and those versions of him you see in the Portal Corp missions on all the dead worlds are his damn clones. Scary).

What amuses me though is that Praetoria has rebuilt itself into a rather impressive looking nation, no matter the moral issues, while Primal Earths Rogue Isles are, while powerful and dangerous, a super-human North Korea. Finding this out will not put Recluse in a good mood, I suspect :lol

Matrix Dragon Wrote:Apparently, he was there at the Well of the Furies on Praetorian Earth as well, but never left alive. The only other confirmed alternate Cole is Reichsman, who I suspect killed him off, just because. As for alternate Lord Recluses, I suspect they're out there, especially given that the one-of-a-kind approach has already been used with Nemesis. (Yeah, that's apparently Word of God, from what I've found. Nemesis only sprung up on Primal Earth, and those versions of him you see in the Portal Corp missions on all the dead worlds are his damn clones. Scary).
What amuses me though is that Praetoria has rebuilt itself into a rather impressive looking nation, no matter the moral issues, while Primal Earths Rogue Isles are, while powerful and dangerous, a super-human North Korea. Finding this out will not put Recluse in a good mood, I suspect :lol

A totalitarian state run by a reclusive and crackpot dictator? I think he'd be quite pleased with that; those sorts of places are easy to topple if you're interested in the long game. And I think Recluse most definitely is.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Ebony Wrote:A totalitarian state run by a reclusive and crackpot dictator? I think he'd be quite pleased with that; those sorts of places are easy to topple if you're interested in the long game. And I think Recluse most definitely is.

I think he'd look at it and then send States a rather condesending note about absolute power....
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

to paraphrase a line from Yojimbo:

why kill your enemies when you can get them to kill each other?
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

sweno Wrote:why kill your enemies when you can get them to kill each other?

This is pretty much Recluse's entire modus operandi.
His top lieutenants feud with each other and his Arbiters. Westin Phipps exists purely to drive up the despair among the disenfranchised and pitiful amongst his populace, driving the kind of anger that motivates the Strong to rise up out of the Weak while suppressing any hope amongst those that could be useful cannon fodder to those that oppose him. Nemesis has launched actual amphibious assaults on the Rogue Isles, providing Recluse with an external enemy to test his troops against, fostering an "Us Vs. Them" mentality that only further extends to heroes and even each other. Ruthlessness and destroying your enemies, no matter who they may be, is encouraged, as is intelligence to realize that dethroning the powerful merely because you can may not always be the best option...at least, unless you're capable of stepping into his dead shoes afterward. He does next to nothing to prevent other villain groups from attacking the Rogue Isles, and in fact actively encourages and assists lower, less connected villains in attacking Paragon, all the while working on manipulating probability itself to ignore the problem of simulated foresight by literally reacting to what Might Be before it Is.
Recluse encourages conflict because he -is- the colossus on the mountaintop....and it's much easier to reach for the heavens when the smaller people below you shoot their slings and arrows at each other rather than their mutual enemy.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."