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Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?


Kirby

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

In any case. I never really liked the idea of 'Istvatha V'han' date=' Conqueror of a Billion Universes' being literally true.[/quote']It's not. Her write-up states this. "...Istvatha V'han, despite her title, does not rule a billion dimensions, but does in fact control something in the neighborhood of a hundred million of them."

 

-- but unless she's spent a two or three hundred points on Head of State (50 Points)' date=' trillions of trillions of followers, etc. etc., I'll ignore it as being exaggeration for the press.[/quote']:confused: Head of State isn't 50 points, it starts at 10 points. And the highest it goes up to is 25 points, which she's paid for. As well as 15 points of wealth. Her sheet also includes "All the Followers, Vehicles, and Bases she could possibly need."
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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Yes, well -- like I said. It doesn't make sense the way it's written up. 'Major Nation' or 'Large Interstellar Society' is 25 points; 'all the followers, vehicles, and bases she could possibly need' is ... mind-boggling, basically. I don't know what the actual points look like, but I build my villains with the same rules I'll allow my PCs; if I don't want my PCs to have it, my villains can't buy it that way either.

 

With everything she's stated to have, though, her inability makes no sense. With the ability to jump hundreds of millions of invasion craft filled with billions upon billions of soldiers across dimensional boundaries, and having done it so many times it's routine (which is what ruling a hundred million dimensions would mean), there is no reason she should be having problems conquering the CU. This isn't an alien invasion force landing in Millennium City, or in the desert outside Phoenix or something; this is hundreds of huge landing craft dropping out of the sky in each city, with battleships keeping overwatch above. This is massive, simultaneous, and practically a foregone conclusion...

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

1) The CU is a fictional world, and runs by the rules of Super Heroic Fiction. V'Han can't drop 1000s of invincible battle ships all over the planet simultaneously and then nuke the Earth from orbit for the same reason that Doctor Destroyer can't just detonate a nuke in the city the PCs happen to occupy while they're all asleep; in the vast majority of campaigns, it would make a crappy game session.

 

2) There are plenty of suggestions up thread as to how to justify her inability to take the game world. My favorite is that she wants the world relatively intact and doesn't want to risk a hot war with other dimension conquerors, and so tries to act subtly and with minimal expenditure of force, but you can take your pick of others.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Yes, well -- like I said. It doesn't make sense the way it's written up. 'Major Nation' or 'Large Interstellar Society' is 25 points; 'all the followers, vehicles, and bases she could possibly need' is ... mind-boggling, basically. I don't know what the actual points look like, but I build my villains with the same rules I'll allow my PCs; if I don't want my PCs to have it, my villains can't buy it that way either.

 

With everything she's stated to have, though, her inability makes no sense. With the ability to jump hundreds of millions of invasion craft filled with billions upon billions of soldiers across dimensional boundaries, and having done it so many times it's routine (which is what ruling a hundred million dimensions would mean), there is no reason she should be having problems conquering the CU. This isn't an alien invasion force landing in Millennium City, or in the desert outside Phoenix or something; this is hundreds of huge landing craft dropping out of the sky in each city, with battleships keeping overwatch above. This is massive, simultaneous, and practically a foregone conclusion...

Yet it hasn't happened. Which is what this thread was started to address. What was left out of her write-up that would make this make sense.

 

The explanation in my campagine is that gates are rare, you need the cooperation of the indigenous sentients to open the really big ones, and half of the available gates near Earth are already damaged. So carpet bombing Earth and Mars then moving in colonist would gain her nothing. She not only has to take Earth intact, but she also needs the hearts and minds of some human mystics.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

1) The CU is a fictional world, and runs by the rules of Super Heroic Fiction. V'Han can't drop 1000s of invincible battle ships all over the planet simultaneously and then nuke the Earth from orbit for the same reason that Doctor Destroyer can't just detonate a nuke in the city the PCs happen to occupy while they're all asleep; in the vast majority of campaigns, it would make a crappy game session.

 

2) There are plenty of suggestions up thread as to how to justify her inability to take the game world. My favorite is that she wants the world relatively intact and doesn't want to risk a hot war with other dimension conquerors, and so tries to act subtly and with minimal expenditure of force, but you can take your pick of others.

 

There you go again, using logic and common sense. :tonguewav:D

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Yes, well -- like I said. It doesn't make sense the way it's written up. 'Major Nation' or 'Large Interstellar Society' is 25 points; 'all the followers, vehicles, and bases she could possibly need' is ... mind-boggling, basically. I don't know what the actual points look like, but I build my villains with the same rules I'll allow my PCs; if I don't want my PCs to have it, my villains can't buy it that way either.

 

With everything she's stated to have, though, her inability makes no sense. With the ability to jump hundreds of millions of invasion craft filled with billions upon billions of soldiers across dimensional boundaries, and having done it so many times it's routine (which is what ruling a hundred million dimensions would mean), there is no reason she should be having problems conquering the CU. This isn't an alien invasion force landing in Millennium City, or in the desert outside Phoenix or something; this is hundreds of huge landing craft dropping out of the sky in each city, with battleships keeping overwatch above. This is massive, simultaneous, and practically a foregone conclusion...

I'm not sure I understand your point of "It doesn't make sense the way it's written up," when you follow it with "I don't know what the actual points look like...." V'han is essentially a plot device. She doesn't have to pay for followers the same way a king or queen write-up wouldn't. It would also be pointless to write-up followers for 100 million dimensions. Just using HD v2.4, the points for 99,999 followers built on 150 base points is 115 character points. Do we really need to figure out how many points 1 billion followers would be? And her followers may not be 100% loyal to her, so much as obedient to the military/government. And like nearly all organizations in life, there are bound to be some trying to make a coup or are exploiting their position for personal power (more plot hooks).

 

As for the rest of what you stated, there are about 10 pages discussing what you're just now bringing up.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Since this is for a comic-book reality' date=' I would put V'han ruling a billion dimensions in the same category as one Green Lantern protecting 1/3600th of the entire universe. ;)[/quote']

 

"Well, we never claimed to be all that effective." - Pyxzzt Ftzwllms, Green Lantern of Sector 1368 AB-Negative

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  • 3 years later...

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

If I were ever going to use her in a game I'd probably make Empress of a Billion Universes a bit of hyperbolic propaganda. Her empire would be quite large but not THAT big.

 

I think that's the intention with the original. She doesn't rule that many....but so many that the number doesn't really matter anymore. That said...I'm not sure how she'd run ONE dimension....

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

I think that's the intention with the original. She doesn't rule that many....but so many that the number doesn't really matter anymore. That said...I'm not sure how she'd run ONE dimension....

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant "My" V'han wouldn't control any entire universes; large segments of several but not an entire Universes. Basically, she'd have started expanding her holdings cross time when expanding further in the same dimension grew impractical/impossible with the available technology. Not all the space she "controls" is totally pacified and some of it isn't that useful (not many inhibtants or useful worlds perhaps one dimension that's basically a void used for disposal/prison, etc).

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

I think most dimensions would be a lot smaller than OUR universe.

 

As far as my own settings go there is nothing particularly unusual about the size of our universe compared to others. There are pocket dimensions, realms and other "smaller" regions across the multiverse but most so called true" parallel universes are much like our own (size wise, some have different physical or metaphysical laws).

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Yes, well -- like I said. It doesn't make sense the way it's written up. 'Major Nation' or 'Large Interstellar Society' is 25 points; 'all the followers, vehicles, and bases she could possibly need' is ... mind-boggling, basically. I don't know what the actual points look like, but I build my villains with the same rules I'll allow my PCs; if I don't want my PCs to have it, my villains can't buy it that way either.

 

With everything she's stated to have, though, her inability makes no sense. With the ability to jump hundreds of millions of invasion craft filled with billions upon billions of soldiers across dimensional boundaries, and having done it so many times it's routine (which is what ruling a hundred million dimensions would mean), there is no reason she should be having problems conquering the CU. This isn't an alien invasion force landing in Millennium City, or in the desert outside Phoenix or something; this is hundreds of huge landing craft dropping out of the sky in each city, with battleships keeping overwatch above. This is massive, simultaneous, and practically a foregone conclusion...

 

Its a comic book world and a role playing game setting. Somethings just happen (or don't) for dramatic reasons. If you think to deeply about some things its just falls apart. That said, everyone's tolerance for handwaving is different. I'm not particularly fond of V'han as written either, not for an rpg which invites deeper speculation since everything is written out and defined from the get go. An alternative is simply don't use her or roll her back to something that doesn't task your personal suspension of disbelief.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Since this is for a comic-book reality' date=' I would put V'han ruling a billion dimensions in the same category as one Green Lantern protecting 1/3600th of the entire universe. ;)[/quote']

 

That would be why DC changed that a while back.

 

 

Now there are TWO Green Lanterns appointed to each sector! Now it all makes sense, right?

 

 

Its a comic book world and a role playing game setting. Somethings just happen (or don't) for dramatic reasons. If you think to deeply about some things its just falls apart. That said' date=' everyone's tolerance for handwaving is different. I'm not particularly fond of V'han as written either, not for an rpg which invites deeper speculation since everything is written out and defined from the get go. An alternative is simply don't use her or roll her back to something that doesn't task your personal suspension of disbelief.[/quote']

 

Agreed. Much of comic book reality is less than realistic. Why don't time traveling villains escape from defeat, spend several years researching, developing weapons specific to their opponents and recruiting an army strong enough to wipe out the heroes, then return 5 seconds after they left, before the heroes have a chance to recover and regroup? If he loses again, retreat back into the timestream and repeat the exercise.

 

Apply real world physics to most superpowers and they fail pretty fast. Seriously, Bruce Wayne (or Frank Castle) has been doing this for 10 - 20 years, been beaten up, shot repeatedly and otherwise injured over and over again - but he's still a perfect physical specimen, with no long-lasting impediments from all those injuries?

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

That would be why DC changed that a while back.

 

 

Now there are TWO Green Lanterns appointed to each sector! Now it all makes sense, right?

 

 

 

 

Agreed. Much of comic book reality is less than realistic. Why don't time traveling villains escape from defeat, spend several years researching, developing weapons specific to their opponents and recruiting an army strong enough to wipe out the heroes, then return 5 seconds after they left, before the heroes have a chance to recover and regroup? If he loses again, retreat back into the timestream and repeat the exercise.

 

Apply real world physics to most superpowers and they fail pretty fast. Seriously, Bruce Wayne (or Frank Castle) has been doing this for 10 - 20 years, been beaten up, shot repeatedly and otherwise injured over and over again - but he's still a perfect physical specimen, with no long-lasting impediments from all those injuries?

 

Well, ever since he purchased all that cloning tech, it's been pretty easy sailing... ;)

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Its a comic book world and a role playing game setting. Somethings just happen (or don't) for dramatic reasons. If you think to deeply about some things its just falls apart.

And nobody said it is easy to cross dimensional boundaries. Or that she only fights on one front in our universe - in fact Steve Long noted (in his thread abotu the upcommign book) that the later part is simply false. She is fighting on multiple fronts in our galaxy/universe (whereever she finds a species willing to follow) and if she ever took real interest earth would have been sacked yesterday.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

If I were ever going to use her in a game I'd probably make Empress of a Billion Universes a bit of hyperbolic propaganda. Her empire would be quite large but not THAT big.

 

V'han's entry in the Champions Villains trilogy (and Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks before that) notes that she "only" rules about a hundred million dimensions. But let's face it, that wouldn't make for such a catchy title, and "ruler of a million dimensions" would seriously undersell her. ;)

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

V'han's entry in the Champions Villains trilogy (and Conquerors' date=' Killers, And Crooks[/i'] before that) notes that she "only" rules about a hundred million dimensions. But let's face it, that wouldn't make for such a catchy title, and "ruler of a million dimensions" would seriously undersell her. ;)

 

Oh is that all? :)

 

But what I mean is I'd probably make her rule several large regions of space across several dimensions but not in the hundreds, probably not far in the double digits and definitely not entire "universes". But V'han isn't generally the type of villain I like to work with so this is all theoretical.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Oh is that all? :)

 

But what I mean is I'd probably make her rule several large regions of space across several dimensions but not in the hundreds, probably not far in the double digits and definitely not entire "universes". But V'han isn't generally the type of villain I like to work with so this is all theoretical.

Ruling a galaxy and actually transfering armies between them are two different pair of shoes. Perhaps you can boost your ability to transfer troops between dimensions and even in a give dimension once you secured a sector and build a gate (this gives the classical slow offense, strong defense setup and a "obvious weakness" the heroes can aim for).

 

From what little I have i think her tactic works like this:

Get informations about the universe she's about to enter. Find the people most dangerous to her goals and the ones most willing to follow her. Then contact the later and help them in what ever way possible. Overall focus on defense, but take targets of opportunity.

In the Champions Online it is noted that she choose the Gadroon to be one of her first bases of operations. That they have a long standing war with the Qular and since her troops a very effective she has a easy time getting both species under her command in short time.

 

A similar trick has been used by the Ori in Stargate and in a dozen other settings where to fractions aimend weapons/fought a war against another.

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

Refresh my memory, please...has the Quaternion Banishment already been mentioned on this thread?

 

A certain portion of V'Han's military might has to be retained within her realm, to maintain civil order. Another portion has to be held in reserve, to defend against incursions from rival dimension lords like Tyrannon and Skarn. Then there is the question of how many dimensions she may be trying to annex at any given time. It may be more than one, and if so her forces will be divided up accordingly, with further reserves held for follow-up/reinforcement. It has been mentioned V'han will often attack dimensions/universes at multiple points, and so her forces would be further divided. Finally, there is the question of the energy/logistics required for "gating" in large invasion fleets/armies--it may well be that she is limited to X million or Y billion tons at a time. Such forces also have to have fuel, food, and ammunition. There may also be a time limit per attempt--that is, she has to succeed and establish a foothold within a certain timeframe, or else the Quaternion Banishment and/or various cosmic entities will tend to push her back out(Galaxars, Corelords, Gods Celestial, Cronos, various terrestrial deities, the Archmage, etc.).

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Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

 

What is that please?

 

It sounds like a ruleset regarding interdimensional conquest/anexion.

 

It's a spell/ritual performed by the Archmage of the CU--it essentially weakens/harms otherdimensional entities who enter the CU, and is a means of explaining why various dimension lords haven't taken over the CU.

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