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This is canon now
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This is canon now
Remember when I said I'd be back with greater numbers? Well I brought 200,000 clone troopers with a million more well on the way. Regardless of where you stand on Star Wars being sci-fi, the clone troopers definitely fall into that area of exploring the impacts of this technology... and I'm not really talking about the prequel films where they mostly just exist to be proto-stormtroopers and then suddenly turn evil at the end (who could've seen that coming?). I'm talking about Star Wars: The Clone Wars and subsequent media, where we really get a chance to get in the heads of these guys.
There's quite a bit that goes on in there! After all, creating new people that age twice as fast for the specific purpose of being soldiers has a lot of implications, and ethical concerns (of course, given their creation was ultimately orchestrated by Palpatine, the ethics were probably never a consideration there). The clones at first see themselves as just that, expendable soldiers, with their Jedi generals encouraging them to see themselves as unique individuals. One in particular, however, takes an actively hostile view of the clones and throws them into the metaphorical woodchipper. The clones are encouraged to be free thinkers, and some of them sure do that - one of them chooses to desert and start a family, while another grows disillusioned with their treatment and sells valuable information to the Separatists. We see them question what their place will be after the war is over, and we see young Boba Fett come to grips with going against soldiers who look exactly like his deceased father. And, of course, we get the lore behind the inhibitor chips that will eventually force them to turn on their Jedi commanders, revealing that they never had quite as much freewill as everyone thought, and by the end of the series, we see long-established characters do just that - and have to come to term with their actions afterward.
Void Termina (Star Allies): The final world in Star Allies involves Kirby traveling throughout deep space to confront Void Termina. It's pretty massive before you can get to the core but the entire arena is a giant space battle, with black holes and galaxies afoot.
Yep, I'll be focusing on THE AI character, HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A full breakdown on his character and what I take from it will have to wait, but for now I wanna focus on just how much of an impact HAL has had!
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[H3]We've only just begun![/H3]
I present: Vez'nan!![]()
"All magic comes with a price."So that's the story of Vez'nan. What are his powers though? Other than banishing people?Vez'nan is the main antagonist of the Kingdom Rush franchise, the best Tower Defense series as of today! He is a dark wizard who has an evil army of goblins, orcs, dark knights, demons, etc. and resides in his tower. Plus he's purple, my favorite color!
But did you know he wasn't always evil, per se? It isn't just Sci-Fi that has origins of villains. Speaking of Origins…
I'm going to go over this guy based on the timeline of the games. That means Kingdom Rush: Origins is the starting point of my summary! During the events of the game, Vez'nan was sided with the good guys (the Elves) and joined them on their battle against the evil Gnolls, Twilight Elves (and their Queen Malicia) as well as one of the spider queens, Mactans. During this adventure, he fought alongside what would be the future king of the Kingdom of Linirea (Denas, known as Prince Denas at the time). After the defeat of the Spider Goddess (the result of Malicia and Mactans fused together via the Tear of Elynie, a magical artifact), the Elves realized that the two villains corrupted the Tear of Elynie, the artifact provided by the goddess of the Elves herself, Elynie. Because it's corrupted, the artifact is now dangerous and must be cast into the Rift of Cinders to destroy it for good. Vez'nan volunteers to perform the task!
Not to destroy it however…
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…but to use it to his advantage. And thus, the evil wizard Vez'nan was born.
Many years later…
In the first Kingdom Rush game, Vez'nan is the main villain. After traveling through the Kingdom of Linirea, winter mountains and the dreaded realm of Valurdul, the good guys make it to Vez'nan's tower. There is no turning back - it's time to test their mettle! After a rousing battle, Vez'nan was killed, and the threat to the kingdom is over.
That is, until Lord Malagar picks up his staff and becomes the bad guy of Kingdom Rush: Frontiers! But he's not Vez'nan, so I'm skipping him.
Fast-forward to Kingdom Rush Vengeance! But Vez'nan is dead… right? Wrong!
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After his "death", Vez'nan became imprisoned by one of the demon lords, Moloch. Because he has been sending demons to the kingdom, he must be stopped. After kicking his big rear end, Vez'nan's cage is destroyed, and he is nowhere to be seen… ooh!
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Free from imprisonment, Vez'nan returns to the Kingdom of Linirea, hoping to relax in his hot tub. To his horror, he discovers that his tower has been turned into a museum and carnival!
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It's time for revenge! Regathering his evil army (with new recruits too, like Twilight Elves and ghosts), Vez'nan journeys throughout the Kingdom of Linirea, conquering everything in his path. This includes the Dwarven Kingdom, the frozen north, and of course, Linirea itself. After breaking into King Denas's Castle, he banishes the poor king in a portal, causing him to disappear.
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Thus, Vez'nan has finally ruled over everything!
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Unfortunately for him, it turns out there's a bigger threat out there: The Unblinded Cult. That's for Kingdom Rush: Alliance.
One month after the events of Vengeance, the remainder of Linirea's forces ventured to the southern continent (the same one where the events of Origins took place) to look for their banished King. Vez'nan and his army arrive to inform them about a greater evil (The Unblinded Cult) that Denas failed to see, but the wizard himself was aware of. He then offers an alliance to stop the new threat and to find King Denas's, to which the good guys agree too. Sure, he took over your entire kingdom but that's water under the bridge now! Turns out there's guy has some pretty great negotiation skills.
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The Alliance manages to rescue King Denas from the cult and stop the evil deity they worship - The Overseer. Awesome! Oh, and Vez'nan allows Denas become the King of Linirea again. That's very nice of him!
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It's a happy ending! Well, not really. One word would describe this entire plot - Deception! With the cult dealt with and the Overseer petrified, Vez'nan retrieves the corrupted Tear of Elynie from his carcass (it was broken off of Vez'nan's staff after Lord Malagar was killed in Frontiers, and a cult member brought it to the Overseer), therefore regaining his true power. What a brilliant plan! What will happen next?! Find out in Kingdom Rush 6, whenever that releases.
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Ah, so this is an opportunity for me to speak up for myself and how I would represent Team Fantasy. Very well.
My name is Xiahou Ba. My name, 覇 (Ba), means to dominate or an overlord (guess my dad wanted me to be very macho...ha ha ha....) I'm the son of Xiahou Yuan from Wei; he's a very famous general who served under Lord Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms era. He's known for his swift ambushes on enemies and was one of the Eight Tiger Generals. Now, I'm not as particularly well-known as the various key figures that are in the Dynasty Warriors series and the greater Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When people think Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they would think of Lord Cao Cao and his brutal, aggressive ambitions, the three brothers under the peach tree oath of Shu (Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei), and the turmoil of many people just suddenly dying in Wu that led to Sun Quan ruling it. The Battle of Red Cliffs is one of the most famous battles (that actually led to the formation of the Three Kingdoms and was Cao Cao's fall from grace), and I'm not even in it.
Unfortunately for me, I don't come into play until a bit later. What makes me a compelling character despite only appearing as a unique officer as late as Dynasty Warriors 7 and only the last book of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is quite a bit of a tragic story. This is common for this era too, the Three Kingdoms era is one of the most violent in Chinese history and practically a lot of characters die early or had a lot of tragic things happen to them, or they engaged in very brutal things themselves.
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Well...here goes nothing.
So yeah, despite not being a major character in the story, there's still a lot of lore behind me, even if it's not all pretty. All of us warriors have....a lot of us going on despite our series looking like a mindless fantasy hack and slash where we just look like we're killing huge droves of enemies with ridiculous weapons, but it's also pretty captivating, don't you think? I like all of the lore behind us, and it's very interesting to see how Dynasty Warriors has adapted us into the game, how we changed, how we're alike, and it applies to all of us, not just me. If others were here, they can explain themselves in great detail, I'm sure of it.Very early on, Zhang Fei of Shu had kidnapped a relative of mine, Xiahouji, when she was a young girl. Now, this is practically typical stuff that happened in this era, kidnappings are quite common (we in Wei did kidnap Xu Shu's mother which forced him to defect to us), though Zhang Fei treated her terribly (I'm not in the mood to get into the details of it) but this comes into play a lot later.
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Eventually, my beloved dad ended up getting killed by his primary rival Huang Zhong of Shu in the Battle of Mt. Dingjun. In history, one of my dad's other sons attempted to get revenge and ended up getting slain (he was 13) but in Dynasty Warriors 8, I show up here and this historical tidbit is referenced by me attempting to go after them in utter rage only to get stopped by Zhang He. I guess he must have known that I would have gotten killed like my historical brother's counterpart.
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Once Cao Cao and Cao Pi died, Wei wasn't really left with a line of as capable rulers, and one of our main strategists, Sima Yi, got very fed up with it. After Zhuge Liang's death (famous strategist from Shu), he denounced the current ruler Cao Fang, who then retreated from politics and allowed Cao Shuang into power. Cao Shuang then had a series of blunders...aaaaaand long story short, he ended up getting executed, Sima Yi led a coup, and then there was a manhunt of people related to the Cao family, which included the Xiahou clan. Xiahou Xuan, one of my relatives, despite not being involved in Cao Shuang's mishaps, got executed, and this led to.....my defection from Wei to the very faction that killed my own dad, Shu.
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Nobody liked me for this move. Guo Huai, my old major and someone who I dearly loved, thought it was a disgrace, and that my father would be rolling his grave. Guo Huai was about to kill me when I lost a fight against him, and then ended up getting killed. The Sima clan hunted me down as I tried to escape. Why did I defect to the people that killed me rather than anywhere else? Because of the earlier aforementioned of Zhang Fei kidnapping of Xiahouji. Without going into gritty details, I had ties to Shu because of that whole situation. I had to go there. The Simas would kill me next. In history, I've gotten so lost and crippled from that journey, I had to kill and eat my own horse, but in the games, Jiang Wei is the one who rescues me and fortunately Liu Shan welcomed me, despite people treating me with much suspicion and uneasiness because I'm their enemy from Wei.
Now, for WEEK 3!
Question of the Week:
As we head into the final week of 'Shroomfest, and with both teams tied in judge bonus points, we're now turning our attention to the vibes and aesthetics of the two genres. Which one offers the truly breathtaking Kingdom sceneries or the stunning spaceship views?
This week is all about art, too! So let's witness Fantasy and Sci-Fi in all their most beautiful glory. There are still a few extra effort points up for grabs from the judge too, so will your team make the comeback? It's up to you, supporters! Let's end this 'Shroomfest with a bang and be sure to lead your team to the top along the way.
If this is following the Star Wars films that means Team Fantasy will win in the end. I rather like being on the winning team so I shall Endorse: Team Fantasy.See what I told you all about striking back?
See what I told you all about striking back? We've got one more week before we settle this, let's bring Team Sci-Fi home to glorious victory!