Is Oblivaeon the Crisis of Sentinels and Tactics is the reboot?

Hey everyone,

I was just thinking - what if Oblivaeon needs to a giant reset or reboot of the Multiverse, just like the DC crisis did. Tactics then is a reboot - same characters but slight changes to the world. Such as Matriarch being Pinion instead of Harpy. Christopher said the two can't exist at the same time becasue they are pre and post reboot? 

I’m thinking it is more along the lines of the Multiverse storyline is ending, Tactics is the new storyline.

As for Pinion - sounds more like Harpy’s powers has improved and, with the loss of Nightmist, takes it upon herself to fill the gap left by Nightmist and becomes Pinion.

Maybe? It could be with timelines being torn. It might be a pseudo-reboot, where they just mix and match from different timelines.

But the biggest issue some people have are with the villains being heroes then back to villains. But there are theories, these ones are mine.

Baron Blade being a villain makes sense. "Now that the world is safe, i'm here to take claim to destroy/conquer it!"

Ambuscade is back to a villain because, he got bored. He missed the excitement, and needed to get back to what he did best.

Akash'Bhuta is back to a villain, because the threat to her system is gone. She is no longer reacting to a predator.

I a way, yes. The "Crisis" storyline, at first, was decided because there were too many alternate earths and times - the story's universe was getting out of hand, it was better to write an end to it and "restart" with something cleaner. Some characters had 3 or 4 alternate origin stories…

Of course it did not take long before things got all chaotic again, but it's expectable, with so many writers and artists with their own ideas.

I tend to see the Sotm->OblivAeon->Tactics evolution this way.  The event gives a good reason to stop having to think about alternate timelines and universe, and go into new directions.

If it was a real comics series, I would say that a new manager decided to "modernize" the comics with the help of new writers. More modern look for the heroes, some changes in the role of characters, new themes, new menaces, new look and feel… And also a good way to make everyone "a little older" and bring a new generation of heroes.

I think the difference is that SotM was always – purposefully – building to this point. "Crisis" was just a response to the bloated situation. 

I feel as if it's more like a successful Marvel event or a Jeoff Johns Green Lantern crossover. The story leads up to the event for quite awhile. The event itself is super crazy and weird and bombastic. Then things go pretty much back to status quo with major differences, think 'No more mutants' after House of M or the birth of the various lantern corps after Sinestro War.

This event doesn't feel like it fundamentally changed the universe as much as a DC Crisis event does. The FV feels the same as does the various Villians. To me, DCs Crisises end up feeling like lazy reset buttons. Maybe because they've gone back to that well at least four times. OblivAeon feels more thought out and crafted than a DC Crisis.

Of course. But I think the Event, like the whole game, is an hommage to this kind of things happening in "real" comic books. Crisis, Civil War, House of M, all these "big" events that "change" at least temporarily the way the universe of the comic book line works.

Of course, in the "real world" these events have many reasons : the whim of an author or lead, the necessity to clean the line, a fall in sales leading to desperate measures or in "writing out" heroes that don't sell much, etc. GtG do this on purpose, and with a lot of preparation - but they do it because it happens in comic books.

In the end, the status quo won't change much : a handful of characters lost or changed mainly. The big big change is the loss of "alternate" timelines and universe, the limitation on planar travel, and the importance of Oblivion Shards. I am very curious to see what kind of story lines we will have in future products…

I do remember reading recently, I think in one of the Q+As, that the reason you need three to five heroes to take on any of the villains in-game is because the game represents the crossover events.

Like, the Wraith has probably fought Spite on-on-one in her solo book bunches of times, but fighting him in the game represents that final time when he gets all drugged up and she needs extra help to bring him down for good.

People have an issue with that?  Have they never read a comic book before?  Villains teaming up with heroes, heroes turning bad, heroes going rogue, heroes becoming good again, villains becoming bad again… those sorts of scenarios are as common as Tuesday morning coffee.  Hell, Dr. Doom (who Baron Blade is closely based on), teams up with the heroes on several occasions and every single time he either has his own agenda, or immediatley goes back to his antics after the world is saved.

Either way, I can't tell you how excited I am to have Baron Blade and La Capitan hero decks in my collection.  And I love Deadline as a character; definitely the most sympathetic villain of the bunch and its great to see him fight for the team.

The issue, for me at least, is less about the villains teaming up with the heroes, and more the villains getting a name change while they are heroes, and then going back to the same old name.  In my mind, a name change indicates a permanent change in perspective, and if they went back to villainy I'd expect them to pick up a third name rather than going back to the old one, because they were changed by the experience.  If they weren't changed by the experience, why did they use a different name?

I would totally not want my temporary days as a super hero staining my stellar villain reputation.  A name-change helps obfuscate that.  And if anyone asks otherwise, I'll tell them it was a clone.  Notice the goatee!

Akash'Bhuta is a perfect example of what I mean.  First there's Akash'Bhuta, and then Akash'Thriya working with the heroes, and then Akash'Darsha, who is villainous again, but different from before.

In her case she literally is a different type of being.

Akash'Bhuta is the manifestation of the earth after amassing X energy over the course of centuries. She then fights the Argent Adept and generally is defeated and the cycle begins anew.

Akash'Thriya is a desperate re-manisfestation in response to OblivAeon, she was only defeated a short while ago, she doesn't have enough strength to fully remanisfest. In addition, her goal is protection instead of devastation and recreation, which is a complete different goal than the spirit of Akash' generally has. Also Akash'Thriya is defeated and then takes power from the Void, changing her further.

This taking of power from the Void and a run in with the Oblivion Shards is what creates Akash'Darsha. She realized she can gather power more quickly through these methods than her normal methods and the shards have begun changing her. For example, while she has a giant manisfestation as Akash'Darsha, she also has Avatars more similiar to Akash'Thriya which she can send out to act seperately from herself. She is not the same being she was, she is more active, more violent, less stable, and her goals may be more gathering power than destruction and recreation, as she has realized the allure of power and what it can do for her.

Edit: Which reading more carefully I think is exactly what you meant. This is why I shouldn't post while it is late and I've been consuming the KS comment section

The only name change I have any issue with is Baron Blade’s. As mentioned he has a lot in common with Doctor Doom, and I could never see Doom stooping so low as to take on a hero name.
Some characters have taken on alternative names at times, sure, but the rampant egotism we’ve seen from Blade doesn’t sit comfortably with doing so.

The actions, characterisation and reasoning possible for any of these villains becoming heroes I’m perfectly fine with, and fits perfectly with comic tropes, but I’m not convinced that name change does.

If you have that issue with Baron Blade why don't you have the same issue with Ambuscade.  He does relatively the same thing going from Ambuscade to Stuntman to Ambuscade.  

I never said anything about it being to do with the switching names then back again, but that switch on the first place for Blade.
I can see Ambuscade going with such a change, as there seems to be an actual change of heart there. He gets fed up losing out all the time on the big hunt and his weakening powers so gives it up only to be drawn back in by the lure of the biggest hunt of all and the fight for survival.
As Ambuscade he’s given up on the adoration of being famous believing it lost, as Stuntman he’s courting it.

Sure, going back to Ambuscade in Tactics does make it a little trickier, but again can be explained from him being weakened and the meta setting with tactics setting clearly being at least a soft reboot with a time jump.
In regards to the meta, I tried thinking of Blade’s name change along those lines, like how Fanatic never refers to herself as such, maybe it’s the title of his miniseries as a hero doing the Oblivaeon crossover event, but even then that doesn’t really work as such a title wouldn’t be anywhere near as marketable as using the established character’s name.

Oh I should add, as a name in an of itself and how it relates to Baron Blade and references you can draw from it I think it’s a great name using some clever wordplay.

But just within the setting and the meta setting it doesn’t make much sense to me from what we know so far.

Him going to Luminary makes sense to me as this would seem to be the fiery appearance of him since his scar was healed in Positive Energy Field.  I'm guessing he went back either because something happens between Legacy and him.   I also think there is a possibility he lost his realm for a while after the events before or after Positive Energy Field and reclaimed it by the time Tactics starts so he reclaims his rightful title.  

*cough*  If I run a post-Oblivaeon RPG, I'm probably going to use my own canon that the five "heroes" from the Oblivaeon box are now a new superteam, the Penitent.  Lead by Harpy, supervised by Fanatic, they are villains seeking redemption after having gained a new perspective in saving the universe.  Except Luminary, who everyone is more than a little wary of, because nobody is certain his "redemption" is real.  OTOH, he largely seems to be walking the walk ( albeit in "I may be a good guy, but I am still a towering egomaniac" manner ), and everyone figures its better to keep him inside the Penitent surrounded by people ready to pounce on him if he turns villainous again.

Official word is they are never truly heroes, they just are willing to fight to survive.

The name change is necessary, because you can't have Baron Blade fighting Baron Blade.  And Baron Blade 2 doesn't really work, so you can't really go the Omnitron route.

I do like that their promos are heroic characters, so that they make thematic sense outside of the Oblivaeon arc.  I just hope they have some kind of subtle crossover with their villain decks like Omnitron does.

I think Harpy and La Comodora are truly heroes and genuinely reformed but Luminary, Akash'Thriya, and Stuntman are not.

I don't buy it.

Even we assume that SotM players are robots who crash if we get multiple conflicting data-sets (which, hey, might be an issue for the video game - I don't know how it's set up!), they could have easily opted for Brigadeer Blade, or Burgher Blade, or even Beloved Blade in case you missed out on the fact that he's a "hero" now, so you all have to like him.  There was no need to go totally off the Blade Brand.

Lots of people like Luminary as a name - it has a number of clever aspects - and that's totally okay.  But It bugs me when they try to say it was somehow the only option.  How could that possibly be the case?  There's loads of words left in my "B" Encyclopedia.

When did anyone say Luminary was the only option?

I dunno, maybe I was responding to the post I quoted?

phantaskippy said the name change was necessary, not that specifically the name change to Luminary was necessary. Given the game's rather literal rules, a change from Baron Blade was a necessary change.

If we're being pedantic, wouldn't that mean a name change was needed, rather than the name change?

I still don't think phantaskippy was saying that it had to be Luminary, but that is the name we got. 

We don't really know the full story though, prehaps the order of events in comics is that the heroes encounter Ivana first who chose the name "Luminary" because in her universe there is no "Blade."  Then she is killed and the Baron takes her name to try to convince those foolish ignorant so called "heroes" that his reform is genuine.  Until the story is fully revealed to us its hard to know whether name change is logical or not.  Still based on what we know so far it does seem an odd choice compared to something like "Baron Brave" or one of the names Ironic suggested.

The whole Blade/Luminary thing reminds me a lot of when Baron Zemo changed his name to Citizen V when Thunderbolts launched.

Akash’Darsha? I missed this nugget somewhere? Where was this mentioned?

(Late to the SotM bandwagon)

It is the form of Akash'Bhuta in Sentinel Tactics.  Still in development. 

Akash’Darsha is from Sentinels Tactics.
Edit: formating

Akash'Darsha was drawn in a art livestream a while back.  There's a thread about it somewhere on the forums.

That's just it, though: the whole premise of Thunderbolts was that it was (spoilers for a comic which, whilst 20 years old, is still my favorite team book of all time) the Masters of Evil fooling the world into believing they were new superheroes.  They had new names because nobody knew it was them.  And, of course, most of them end up becoming the heroes they pretended to be and keeping those names (though Zemo not so much).  The names are, in other words, an integral statement about their character arcs.

Luminary isn't like that.  From what Christopher has said, it sounds like he's not even pretending.  It's not Zemo in Thunderbolts, it's Luthor in Destroyer.  But… Luthor didn't start going by Man Of Scalp or whatever for his five-minute team-up with Superman.  He went by Lex Luthor.

I really should opt out of this argument, because it's such a small thing and we've all heard each other at great length already, but at this point, my obsession with details works against me.  This is something which is at odds with the genre conventions.  That's not bad in and of itself, lots of good things come from disregarding convention, but I just squirm a little when people act like it's not a little unusual.  Knowing what something is remains valid, regerdless on your feelsings for it, specifically.

I think that I'm going to imagine it like this:

News People:  "So, we hear that a big evil space guy is trying to destroy the world."

Legacy: "Yes, OblivAeon is quite dangerous.  We've pulled out all the stops to protect the world.  We've even teamed up with Baron Blade."

News People: "WHAT! Baron Blade!  But he's evil!  He tried to crash the moon into the Earth!  And then tried to blow up Megalopolis!  We can't say that you're teaming up with Baron Blade!"

Legacy: "But we are.  And not just him.  Among the alternate universe heroes that we've summoned there's an alternate version of Ivan, who calls herself Luminary and is a hero like we are.  She's joining us too."

News People: "Luminary.  That's not a bad name.  Okay, we'll say that you're teaming up with Luminary and alternate Luminary.  That'll work."

That narrative makes sense to me - It's not that Baron Blade starts going by Luminary, but he coopts the name from the real Luminary when she joins us from another world as a PR stunt.  And then once OblivAeon is over, he goes back to his old path and name.


For Ambuscade, this explaination doesn't work as well, because he had abandoned his villainy and returned to stunt work before the OblivAeon events.  In his case, I'd say that OblivAeon reawoke his desire for big game hunting and pulled him out of retirment, but he switched from hero hunting to mercenary work (which involves some hero hunting.  But also villain hunting).  But while he might have benefited from cleaning his slate and starting over with a new name, as a mercenary he benefitted more from his previous credentials and reputation, so he went back to using the name Ambuscade.

In both cases, though, I'd consider the "alternate world" versions to be the "true" version, and the villains-turned-hero to be the variants.  So I'm hoping that they show up frequently in the art and flavor text.

I see your arguments, Ironic, but I do think there becomes a point where debating over it is just nitpicky. Especially considering we don’t know the full story or motivations yet. A lot has yet to be revealed.

And a lot of your distaste for the name swapping seems to stem from “That’s not how it works in comics,” but i think that Sentinels and the great characters within it have the capacity to reach outside of the stereotypes (even if they originally purposely derived of those tropes from the outset).

In the end, it’s Christopher’s and Paul’s story. There are going to be aspects of it some of us disagree with. And that’s fine. But telling the creator’s “X character would never do Y” is kind of pointless, because who ultimately knows and understands that character better than them?

Moreau is an actor by trade, so he’s probably totally cool with putting on whichever name fits the role: Ambuscade, Stuntman, whatever.

But as a villain Moreau is a hunter. Thats his whole power trip, to hunt powerful game. Thats why he has nemesis icons for Haka and Naturalist because they fulfill this desire to hunt the biggest and best. Why wouldnt Moreau throw his hat in to combat the biggest game in the entire multiverse?

Important distinction needs to be made here.

There is not an option for the villains turned Hero to keep their old names.  You can't have that, because Villain cards would cause them to deal damage and vice-versa.  It is not feasible mechanically.  So no matter what the thematic reasons that might exist, a Hero named Baron Blade was never an option.

The choice of the changed name is thematic, the name being changed is necessity.

Omnitron-X gets a number added on to make his cards work differently, but that doesn't fit thematically for Blade, Akash or Ambuscade.

Stuntman works because Moreau was an action film, and went back to it before OblivAeon.

Luminary I don't know why it was chosen, maybe to reference the moon, or maybe to mock Legacy's lamp thing, or maybe both, or maybe for entirely different reasons.

But whatever those reasons, the name Baron Blade was never an option for his hero deck.

But surely Blade was an option, or The Baron or something like that, something with some tie to his previous well known name.

Possibly but I like the complete name change.   Considering we have very little to go off of there may be more story reasons for it.

Well, errata is a thing. But I can understand keeping them separate for simplicity's sake.

I, too wish the villains weren't flippity-floppity about their allegiance and titles, but if a cosmic entity was about to destroy reality, I would certainly fight alongside the ones I once tried to destroy since it wouldn't exactly allow me to carry out my villainous plans.

I presumed it was because Baron Blade is an egomaniac who thinks he's the greatest genius in the world.

“Luminary” and “luminous” aren’t words that specifically connect to the moon. You’re probably thinking of “lunar,” “lune,” and that family of words.

He’s probably playing on Legacy’s lamp, if anything beyond just proclaiming “I’M A GENIUS!!!”

Now, if he’d chosen the name “Lunatic,” on the other hand…

"Luminous" is totally a word that connects to the moon.  It is the brightest thing in the night sky.  And when it's full where I live farmers get an extra days work done.

Think about how much brighter it will be with the moon so much closer to Earth!

I kept wondering why the moon seemed so much brighter.  Then it hit me…

Like a big pizza pie?

To the point, “luminous” has to do with something being bright or shining. That’s not necessarily the moon, specifically. The sun, stars, and planets would also qualify.

Today the moon, tomorrow we start working on collapsing the whole solar system.

We tried collapsing the whole solar system once.  It all went into one fixed point, which caused a rift in time and then started a whole time cataclysm.  It was a mess.  

Yeah, but I bet it really annoyed Legacy.

I would just like to take this chance to thank Powerhound_2000 for bringing this to my attention:

[quote="Ironic"]

So.  For the umpteenth time: "a change had to happen" is not a valid argument.  The name has to stand (or not) on its own merits.

[/quote]

I agree with your larger point but I'm not sure this is a fair example considering we don't know what the rules will be to govern this interaction.  For all we know the rule may be to remove each Sentinel who shares a name with a Void Gaurd hero from the game. I'm getting the sense that most people are assuming the rule will be to apply the effects of the cards to the version of the hero whose deck the card came from.  If this is in fact the case, then you are right a similar rule would have worked for Baron Blade.  While, based on what we know as of now, the name Luminary doesn't seem a perfect fit, it's hard to know when so much of the story is still to be released in the form of flavor text and art.

Edit to add that it just occured to me that this may all be covered explictly in Freedom Five Annual #30.

Is Luminary really such a horrible name that this argument is still around?

I mean, it's not perfect, but it's not bad either.

Honestly, I am less troubled by the name than by logical fallacies.

What logical fallicies?

There weren't any. There was making a guess from somewhat limited information that was elaborated later. Failing to be 100% correct is not the same thing as engaging in a logical fallacy.

But the fact is that if you have multiple decks of the same name you need rules to disambiguate things, which will be the case for Void Guard as Christopher said. No disambiguation is necessary with the hero decks in Oblivaeon because each character has a new, different name rather than bringing their villain names forward.

Just going to point out that Christopher's quote above, that mutiple heroes with the same will be allowed without weird issues, does go against an official ruling that we had before. I have no problem with the change, but it is a change.

That's true, but in this case, both apply.

Treating a single rule as an unbreakable law in a game with exception-based mechanics is an Anecdotal Fallacy - it conflates a single case with all options.  Incidentally, this same line of reasoning would hold that, say, The Ennead could not exist, since under pre-Enhanced rules, there wasn't discussion of "Character cards," it was just "the villain."  Obviously, a designed showed up which called for a different approach, so the designers created an exception, just as they are doing here.

No, sorry. It was not a fallacy. It was "not having all the information." And even so, they chose to change the villains' names for their hero decks, and one assumes it was not for no reason at all, which seems to be the basis of your argument.

It's not even really comparable to the Sentinels -> Void Guard thing since in that case they're specifically adding rules to prevent unnecessary interactions between the Void Guards' decks and the Sentinels' deck. The option was either that or change their names, and they chose not to change those names. One of these choices has to be made each time a character gets a new iteration, and it is not wrong to point out that this is a valid reason for name changes.

I don’t think a “this incorrect unofficial way of playing can be considered the most correct out of the listed incorrect unofficial ways of playing” can really be taken as an official ruling.

It will be interesting to see how they rule the Void guard.

Because as of right now, everything in the game that refers to a card name or keyword will search the entire table for that name or keyword.

That's why If Pride or Prejudice is borrowed by Guise and the other is in Expat's area when Pride is used you can use Prejudice and you end up with both Guise and Expat dealing 2 projectile damage.

Its why Omnitron-X's Self Sabotage can be used to destroy Omnitron's components, and the unofficial ruling on multiple decks with the same name goes along with it.

Before Christopher stated that they would have the same names and rules would be added 100% of this game fell directly in line with my statements.

It is not a logical fallacy to use all the information you have at hand to analyze a new set of information.

It is logically flawed to accuse someone of a logical fallacy because in the future they were proven wrong.

Also, we have to apply the rules we have to the situations that apply in the game the best we can.  Otherwise it is all house rules.  Every single rule in this game carries with it a caveat of "unless otherwise stated", if you look at my posting record you will see me bring that up a lot.

I was wrong, but there was nothing wrong with the process that led me there, the rules are going to change, but as of right now you can't have 2 targets with the same name in a game without making house rules.  Expecting that to change is less logical than expecting it to stay the same.

Tactics being a different/alternate universe was confirmed in a livestream recently btw. I am correct. 

Sort of, Tactics and the RPG are alternate versions of the "future" both spliting off from the same reality as Sentinels of the Multiverse.

Edit: sorry misread your post thought you were asking something different.

s/Paul/Adam/

VI!!!

NERDS! Also, Parse should have a mini-nemesis named "Regex."