I13 Mish Creator Info (from Hero 1)

[Acyl]

Edited chat log from The Legendary channel. I think by this point, Atlantea and I are officially doing this. Totally has to be done, and our ideas are
just meshing here. This is really coming together.

Definite thanks to Ops, Matrix, and all the others who've chimed in on this, though. As this continues to take shape, we'll definitely need more input.

* * *

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Oh, Acyl? That Clockwork arc of yours was utterly brilliant.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Never thought to tie the Paragon Clockwork to Bat'Zul like that

[The Legendary]Acyl: It's a CoV canon linkage.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Yeah....especially since the CoT bring Bat'Zulians in their CoV mobs...

[The Legendary]Acyl: A bit of a stretch, but you need, narratively speaking, a first 'wtf is going on' mission to build tension.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: A few get to Paragon isn't out of the question

[The Legendary]Acyl: Exactly.

[The Legendary]Acyl: I thought Atlantea's use of the PCM was inspired as well.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: ...even if I'd love for the CoV mobs to be identical in both sides.

[The Legendary]Acyl: And the two /can be combined/, the more I think about it.

...

[The Legendary]Atlantea: I have no issues with the Clockwork King arcs being 25-35 is good now that it's clear that the LGTF can be run at level 35. (Or at
least you can participate in it.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: So it works as that level.

[The Legendary]Acyl: My thinking is, really...

[The Legendary]Acyl: For Penny Yin to want to use the PCM, she's gotta -really have reason-.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: One of the things I mentioned that I didn't see anyone else pick up on was the possibility of running a mission against Ouroboros
in order to get a component.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Else it looks like she's doing something really /really/ dangerous...well she is, but I think you can justify it more if you /build it
up/.

[The Legendary]Acyl: I saw that, yea.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Grand Theft Ouroboros. =D

[The Legendary]Acyl: I dun think there are any regular Ouro mobs tho.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Which means that the attempt to fix the mind of king happened before he broke out and went after Yin again.

[The Legendary]Acyl: In fact I don't know of any combat Ouro characters besides Lazarus in one mish as an ally.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Yeah. There are Midnighter Mobs, but no Ouros, I think.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Well there is Mender Silos.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Scuze me....

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Mender LAZARUS

[The Legendary]Atlantea: My bad.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Heck, I apply the mental image of swarms of Clockwork busting into the Zig.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Even the psi-shields there aren't strong enough

[The Legendary]Acyl: Could always steal the Midnighter pillar.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Since it's already unlicensed anyway. =D

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Actually, I had a differing image I'm actually writing now.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Heh

[The Legendary]Acyl: Just borrow it for a moment.

[The Legendary]Acyl: We'll return it honest.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: I mean, look at Breakout. Have you SEEN the interior of the Zig?

[The Legendary]Acyl: Make that mish one that can reasonably be stealthed.

[The Legendary]Acyl: If you have a stealth power.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: That place is pretty much asking to be made into Clockwork.

[The Legendary]Acyl: In fact that mish should -encourage- you to stealth. And...

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Heh.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Heh.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Attempts to hold him/cure him keep failing as parts of the zig come to life and bust him out

[The Legendary]Atlantea: About Penny. How telepathic is she? She's got some kind of deep connection with the Clockwork King, I'm thinking.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: At least as powerful as the King and Psyche, apparantly

[The Legendary]Acyl: She mentions that she talks to friends across the world, during her Faultline arc missions.

[The Legendary]Acyl: As in she specifically mentions a friend in Tokyo and so on.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Yeah. It's stated several times that she's one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: And you get the impression she's NOT using a phone

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yes. =D

[The Legendary]Acyl: Because she says she can't contact her father.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Ooh... yeah. You'd have to keep the King in a big plastic prison like Magneto. Or maybe even THAT wouldn't work! Plastic
Clockwork anyone?

[The Legendary]OpMegs: The King's concept essentially makes any prison he's in impossible to foolproof.

[The Legendary]Acyl: I think that's one reason -why- trying to heal the King becomes important.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: He's telekinetic

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yeah. Good point.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Sister Psyche's assistance is logical - she helped with Malaise.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: The original Clockwork were running off his MIND animating them

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yes.

[The Legendary]Acyl: So that's why I wanted to see a mish where you get to go Astral and look in his head.

[The Legendary]Acyl: And that lets us re-info dump the King's history.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Killed by Blue Steel, so on.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Right.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: I loved the image of the shattered "representative" psyche

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yeah, you rescue and fight bits of him alternately. =D

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: The clues are statements from each part of the King on his past

[The Legendary]Acyl: I like that idea.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Exactly!

[The Legendary]Acyl: Exactly that!

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Does he have a NAME in canon other then the Clockwork King?

[The Legendary]Acyl: ...no.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Nope

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Conscience: I just wanted to help people... my powers let me help so many at once...

[The Legendary]Acyl: Well, his original Clockwork were annoyance-level thefts.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: He's always been referred to as "a young man"

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Wow. I like the mindscape/shattered psyche idea.

[The Legendary]Acyl: They were dismantling air conditioning units and stealing plumbing and so on, which is why the police got involved.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Well, building his army to help....

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yeah, there might not have been malicious intent.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: True that.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Maybe a touch of "A god am I" to minor effect.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Steel flipped because when they try to take him in at the factory, a propane tank exploded and three cops were killed.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: He has a wider perspective. He knows he's acting in the better interests

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: He told his minions to build more, and didn't notice the small details

[The Legendary]OpMegs: For all we know, he's like Frostfire

[The Legendary]Acyl: I don't really think we want to paint him as a -saint-, but...

[The Legendary]Acyl: Misunderstood and sympathetic is a good way to go.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: He was *trying* to help, but dangerously naive/unnoticing

[The Legendary]Acyl: And hearing it from inside his head gives you the chance to skew things anyway.

[The Legendary]Acyl: It doesn't have to be accurate, it's how HE perceived or perceived it.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: And then, by "accident", cops are killed.

[The Legendary]MicroShade: Sister Psyche might be one of the chacters you have to unlock so don't expect to be able to plan on her assistance... she's
busy elsewhere....

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: "I was making things better, and Steel was JELOUS!"

[The Legendary]Acyl: And after the whole mindtrip astral mission...

[The Legendary]Acyl: No, I mean.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Use a fedex mish to her.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Nah. More like Steel overreacted.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Just talk to her.

[The Legendary]Acyl: She'll let you use the astral thingy.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: He's had 20 years to brood on it

[The Legendary]Acyl: Which is canonically from Harvey Maylor's arc.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Steel wasn't Jealous so much as he didn't let the King explain

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Like I said, he's had a long time to brood.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: It was ALL his fault. Because he didn't do what heroes are supposed to do, and try to talk first.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Steel lost it and beat the shit out of a defenseless guy.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Obviously, that's going to horribly skew his memories

[The Legendary]Acyl: There's really no way around that. Pity there's no Blue Steel combat mob yet.

[The Legendary]Acyl: EVen with shields in I13. =D

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: He'd try to figure out why

[The Legendary]Acyl: Else we should totally have Blue Steel present in that astral mish.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: And, naturally, he wasn't going to be mobile for some time

[The Legendary]OpMegs: The Clockwork had to develop a way to sustain him.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yeah. And the shattered psyche thing - he might have become unable to focus because each little clockwork runs off a portion of his
mind. He didn't notice at first what it was doing to him. By the time he did, he wasn't able to care.

[The Legendary]Acyl: One of the early Clockwork arcs has the King freak out about you, the hero, because you remind him of the hero that did this to him.

[The Legendary]Acyl: It's clear it's a great source of fear for him.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: ... He was a broken wreck, calling out for someone to help him... so the Clockwork did, in the only wat they knew how

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yeah.

[The Legendary]Acyl: We need to find the most elegant way to phrase all of this...

[The Legendary]OpMegs: I always referred to it by the Hamidon analogy. The King is Hami, in the middle, the guiding force. The outer pieces are tied to him,
gain direction, but he doesn't control them directly

[The Legendary]Acyl: ...but this is all /excellent/ content for that key exposition mission.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: They're antibodies

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Course, that leaves the question of how indepentant they are...

[The Legendary]MicroShade: ... where's my dictionary....

[The Legendary]Acyl: The key thing is to try and create at least some sympathy for the King, and provide -reason- for...what would otherwise be damn drastic.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: I mean, they are extensions of his will... but can he control directly?

[The Legendary]Acyl: Using the PCM.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: You don't control the antibodies in your body. Your body can even get sick and do suerious damage to you by *trying* to help you.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: I imagine the Clockwork are much the same for the King

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Ooh.... maybe he's developed a fixation on Penelope because she's like a psychic beacon. She's SO powerful and SO focused,
that he's actually ABLE to pay attention to her in a singlular fashion, and some part of him recognises his need for help, and...

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Yin: He was trying to make things better... He messed up, yeah, but... he didn't deserve this...

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Or maybe because, instinctually, he just knows she can fix him.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: That's where I was going, yes.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: More subconcious than concious, but it would *take* a psychic of her magnitude to remotely approach fixing his brain

[The Legendary]Acyl: The fact that you get a temp Clockwork summon from Penny Yin - she gives you a handful of parts...

[The Legendary]Acyl: And the fact there are deactivated Clockwork lying inside Yin's market's shelves...

[The Legendary]Acyl: Suggest at least to me that to some degree /she/ can control the Clockwork directly.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Well, the modern clockwork are sort of independently mobile

[The Legendary]Acyl: Or that, at the very least, she sees to them in a way not unlike the King; after all, she had to have the handful of parts to give you,
and there are Clock pieces in the place.

[The Legendary]Acyl: No, early arc suggests they really all are psionically motivated.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: So it's not surprising their minds are at least "programmable"

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And I think, on some level, it would be neat/poignant if he actually comes to care for her in a real way, and she can see that. Maybe
see what he really is/was/used to be. She wants to help him be human again.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Oh.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yeah.

[The Legendary]Acyl: I see what you mean.

[The Legendary]MicroShade: anyone even looked at the paragonwiki article about the clockwork king? or am i coming into the discuission lafe?

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Psychic constructs = parts of his mind?

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Essentially, I imagine the Clocks now are sort of "Mk.IIs"

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Their bodies are actually functional, but the mind is all the King

[The Legendary]Atlantea: I have looked at that. But it's been a long time.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: As opposed to the earlier ones that're implied to be purely telekinetically animated.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Which then built the functional ones, which build more advanced ones....

[The Legendary]Acyl: Some of the Clockwork seem to speak on their own.

[The Legendary]Acyl: They do have dialogue.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: They've been active long enough to form their own mind?

[The Legendary]Atlantea: I seem to recall that in the arc where you rescue that mechanic Lou and his family, that he comments that the Clockwork shouldn't
really work. Or was that one of the Hero Corp contacts?

[The Legendary]Acyl: I figure that's a case of fragmented personality.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Oh,m the whole arc tells you that the Clockwork make no sense mechanically.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Right.

[The Legendary]Acyl: If that stays true, then yeah, they rely on telekinesis to 'bridge the gap' where their mechanical bits would stop working.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: So what I was getting at is ....

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Each clockwork has a "psychic construct" as part of its workings. And that essentially is or is linked to a part of the
Clockwork Kings mind. What's awesome to think about is his potential power. HOW many of these things ARE there anyway?

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Well, Psyhic Clockwork world demonstrates that

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Most of the smaller ones aren't much of a drain, and don't have much in the way of intellect. Like animal level instinct.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: But the larger ones I think actually have parts of his personality in them.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Psychic Clockwork King, the psi-version of the AV, is originally from a heroside portal arc.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Yep

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: I meant that version of him

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yeah.

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Not the local one in a Yin-related panic attack

[The Legendary]Acyl: Where Clockwork are the only thing in that world.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Yeah.

[The Legendary]Acyl: The local one doesn't have full access to that power level yet.

[The Legendary]Acyl: But the point is he -has- the potential.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Which is why I see the Rikti/Lost grabbing him and trying to use him like they did Penny.

[The Legendary]Acyl: I mean.

[The Legendary]Acyl: C'mon they ain't gonna give up.

[The Legendary]Acyl: And while Penny's well guarded now...

[The Legendary]Atlantea: In the LGTF, were the Clockwork attacking in the first mission the regular kind? Or the psychic kind?

[The Legendary]Acyl: The whole episode revealed another powerful psychic...

[The Legendary]MatrixDragon: Psi

[The Legendary]Acyl: Psychic kind. Clock King and the whole spawn are Psychic Clocks.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yeah. And the Rikti will try and grab him. It makes sense.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Bio info and suchlike says the stress has driven him to tap into his latent potential.

[The Legendary]Acyl: And if you remove the Clock King, cut him off from psychic contact...

[The Legendary]Acyl: Which the Lost/Rikti CAN do - they shielded Yin's father from her mind...

[The Legendary]Acyl: ...what happens to the Clockwork outside?

[The Legendary]Acyl: Either they just go berserk, stop working...

[The Legendary]OpMegs: They stop working

[The Legendary]Acyl: ...but there's another force hacking the Clockwork.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Yeah. A new motivator

[The Legendary]Atlantea: OH!!! Potential plot element: What if the Clockwork King is SO potentially powerful, and because of his fractured mind/link with his
minions, that the Rikti have discovered that he can not only open the main portal to the Rikti alternate earth, but...

[The Legendary]Acyl: The Rogue Island Clockwork hijacked by Bat'Zul.

[The Legendary]Acyl: ...connect to his alternate selves everywhere?

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Yes.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Open portals WHEREVER THERE ARE CLOCKWORK.

[The Legendary]Acyl: Kingdom Come. =D

[The Legendary]OpMegs: It'd bypass the magical barrier

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Smuggle Clockwork back to Rikti Homeworld, let them replicate...

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Now mind you, that's something that would only be a text element, I think. The contact letting you know what's at stake if you
fail.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: I don't know of a way to work that in as a mission element.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Well, assuming the Assault Portals are selectable items...

[The Legendary]OpMegs: A test run

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Ah yes.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Rikti beaming in without dropped War Walls

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Because the local Clockwork are providing "anchors"

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And you have to shut them down. And - ooh... They're being generated by clockwork! You could use the graphic element of the
Clockwork framing a portal with their little electric arc fences, the way they hold captive in Faultline!

[The Legendary]Atlantea: You destroy those little Clockwork and the portal shuts down. But there's a LOT MORE clockwork and Rikti in the room guarding
them.

[The Legendary]MicroShade: But the question would need to be asked... who would gain from getting rid of Psi King and potentially wipeing out the clockwork...
and didn't I read somewhere that the clock work in one dimension was invented by Evil!Synapse and Evil!Positron?

[The Legendary]Acyl: Who would gain from getting rid of the Psi King and wiping out the clockwork? That's not really an issue, I mean.

[The Legendary]Acyl: We're pointing out what can be gained from exploiting his powers.

[The Legendary]MicroShade: ... it was in one of the comics I remember reading that.

[The Legendary]Acyl: And the potential pathos and sympathetic element of his character, as a means of helping him.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: And unlike, say, Frostfire, he's sympathetic, in a way.

[The Legendary]OpMegs: Frosty overreacted to a tragedy, but he's obviously not gonna turn cape any time soon

(From this point onwards, the conversation topic moved to Frostfire's backstory, speculation on Sister Psyche's powers, and other assorted weirdness.)
-- Acyl