Most Crucial Weapons/Items From TDP

jtr7 on 18/12/2008 at 03:51

I figured, but just in case.:cheeky:

The Shroud on 18/12/2008 at 18:54

Quote Posted by jtr7

My comment's only baseless because you know what you are doing and believe in your cause.

Well the comment in question was baseless because there was no justification for it. The only thing about the final cutscene that's different is the absence of the mechanical eye. Therefore, this statement:

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...this was about rigid containment of TDP-only ideas, minus most of the final cutscene...

...was baseless. As was this one:

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...your desire to write a story where Gold, TMA, and TDS do not exist.

And this one:

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...with no room for the whole trilogy, and that you really wanted to eliminate the possibility of a continuation, and discard the bigger picture quite thoroughly.

Having the Maw "follow in the wake" of the destruction of its "anchors" does not invalidate the story of TMA or TDS. In fact, while writing the screenplay, I prepared an outline for a TMA script. In it, the following takes place during the first half of the story:

Garrett follows the wounded pagan through a portal in the city cemetary. He emerges in a pagan sanctuary nestled deep in the forest outside the city, where he witnesses the remnants of a village torched by Mechanists. He manages to activate a portal to the pagans' gathering place, which transports him to an underground cavern. The cavern leads to a secluded grove elsewhere, where he encounters Viktoria and her thistleaides.

That seems pretty well intact to me.

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You've cut away critical parts, forgetting the symbolism, forgetting the influence these things have upon each other, the player, the motivation behind even minor characters' actions, who the factions are and what they mean to each other.

You think I've forgotten all those things? How so? Please provide some specific, concrete examples of how the changes I've made to TDP's ending necessitate changes in the motivations behind characters' actions, identities of factions, their relationships, and all the other things you've heaped on top of those in your butterfly-effect hypothesis.

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They aren't just in opposition, they share a lot in common, too. What you have chosen to discard, in the finale, are things that would cause a shift in why characters do what they do, and how they see each other.

Again, I want some specifics. Which things have I discarded in the finale that would cause a shift in why who does what and how who sees whom?

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Here, at the end, you are turning characters and people into plot devices instead of whole beings

Your exaggerations are getting more and more drastic as you go on. I really think you're getting carried away with your thesis here. In what ways am I turning which characters and people into plot devices instead of "whole beings"?

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Layers, details, world-building, people's beliefs. These things need to EXIST.

Alright. Which layers, details, world-building aspects, and people's beliefs have I eliminated with these changes and how?

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The Eye isn't called The Eye AND blind for no reason, it has a history preceding TDP, and has a future based on why it exists in the first place. The Eye does not just exist as a plot device to give the Trickster something to covet, and Garrett to acquire. Giving the Eye sight is to create a snowball effect of prophecy fulfillment, wiping out corruption one (or two) factions at a time, knocking the people back to square one, to keep the ultimate balance, which is about keeping the childish bickering greedy citizens alive, instead of allowing any group to wipe the other out. Giving The Eye sight means Garrett is The One, The One True Keeper, the "thief" the Glyphs protect from the Keepers by never calling the thief "The One" or giving away what Garrett is destined to do.

Well, small detail really, but recall that "the One, the renegade who is both brethren and betrayer" is actually Gamall, not Garrett. We are led to believe it's Garrett in TMA, but discover in TDS that we were wrong. Anyhow, back to your point...

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Giving The Eye sight means it can do what The Eye was destined to do, and that is NOT projecting the HeartsMaw reality into our own! The Eye is given sight so that it could be activated by The One because the Keepers have become corrupted by Orland's unbalanced leadership. The Eye's purpose in the trilogy is NOT the Dark Project. That is Tricky's purpose. Tricky's corruption leads to Garrett getting The Eye and providing it with fuel to become The One. With the flesheye, The Eye is attuned to Garrett, The One True Keeper, the only Key to activating the Final Glyph, the failsafe. The Eye is NOT incidental.

It doesn't have to be, given what's in the script. The Eye is merely presumed destroyed, not confirmed destroyed. Just like Viktoria. As for the Eye's sight, I think merely having glimpsed the world through Garrett's eye is enough to attune it to him. Actually, although I didn't clarify this earlier, my intention was that Garrett's eye itself was altered through its attunement to the Eye, and actually maintains a subtle connection to it. You seem to think I tried to eliminate the significance of Garrett's eye having been bound to the Eye. On the contrary - I see Garrett's eye as being significant because of that very relationship - and that is why I chose to have it remain with Garrett, with all the symbolism that it entails.

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The eyes are symbols, harbingers of what's coming. What Garrett and the factions go through is both good and evil. Evil to them, but good for humanity overall, good for The City in the end. Yin and Yang (a symbol used in-game). The Trickster's Dark Project, Karras's heretical works, Truart's "new age", the Keeper's failsafe, all symbolized by eyes (the TDS City Watch even more so). The Trickster's third eye, Karras's "watchers", the Keeper quote "who watches the watchers?", and the name "City Watch", all tie into the eye symbology. Garrett's eye symbolizes the Metal Age, as well as the melding of metal and flesh, and his flesheye symbolizes the Unwritten Times, as The Eye is able to do its thing only because of Garrett's flesheye. Let's not be so quick to unwrite the Thief universe.

Thief's eye symbolism is obvious. And I haven't removed it. But Garrett's eye doesn't have to symbolize the Metal Age. He doesn't have to be a harbinger of the second of three stories. He can be a harbinger of the third. His eye can (should, in my view) symbolize the Unwritten Times rather than merely the dawn of the Metal Age, which by the time of TDS, has come and gone. His role goes beyond the Metal Dawn, past it, and I think it's more fitting and foreboding that his eye should foreshadow something farther ahead than the very next sequel in the trilogy.

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The mechanical eye connects Karras to Garrett, and also represents the reasons why Karras wants Garrett murdered. He knows his skills, he gave him the eye in hopes he would be on his side when his radical movement gained momentum, and Garrett just took it without acknowledging the one who gave it to him and Karras made no ally.

Karras doesn't have to have given Garrett a mechanical eye. He could just as easily have tried to get Garrett to join him with promises of the Builder's coming glory for all His Children - and Garrett, being Garrett, simply scoffs at the offer. The mechanical eye is extra. It's an unnecessary contrivance - one I probably wouldn't be adverse to, if not for its extreme implausibility. It's the Metal Age, not the Cybernetic Age. I mean, let's face it. The "mechanical" eye is biotech. Translating images into encoded neural impulses transmitted to the brain, gyroscopic movement controlled by brainwaves, aetheric vibrations - this stuff is way beyond the Mechanists' technology. They're just starting to figure out submarines, yet they've achieved cybernetics? It's just not believable. It doesn't work. And it doesn't need to be there.

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The Thief 2 Gold revisionists will certainly be interested to know how you would excise the mechanical eye from the games and cutscenes. The mechanical eye is not a power-up without the scouting orbs and zoom. I understand Truart needs no reason from Karras to go after Garrett, but the implication is that the City Watch is going after him harder than the other criminals, and Truart has actually been hired to kill him. Yes, the T2G revisionists would be interested to know how much would be left, and how much new fiction would have to be written to tie things back together.

Honestly, not much is needed to tie them together. Garrett poses a threat to Karras due to his role in prophecy. Karras is right to fear his interference.

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The Maw continues. The portals continue into TMA. TMA shows the Maw is doing okay without Tricky, different, but not undone. It matters. After Viki is gone, there is good indication the Maw plays little part anymore. The pagan sapling has to be shipped in from somewhere, then planted, the elemental cocoon needs fueling, and the pagan cornerstones need mossing to increase the pagans' power--subtract the game-mechanics and the story tells you they are weak. Even Dyan makes decisions based on Viki's final instructions. The Maw is Pagan Heaven and it exists. They go there for strength and protection, and desire to go there when they die. They speak of The Green, and Viktoria is The Lady, and the Lady of the Green. Lotus expects to go there when he asks Garrett to kill him. Viki draws her strength from there and she fears she can only take with her into Soulforge what strength she already has. It's ingrained in the pagan way of life, and it goes beyond religious belief. It's fact.

[INDENT]"Lit up the lights o' the Gathering Place,
'til all of thems glows round the Woodsie Lord's head.
Then open them eyes of the Jacksberry Giver,
by bringin the rubies and then placing thems there.
Jumps in His mouth, when glows it all red,
for these is the way to them lair of the greens, the maw of them earthsies and court of us dreams."[/INDENT]

They don't just jump into a maw to go to their hawt green Mama in The Maw (groan, sorry 'bout that). Viki isn't demoted to "den mother" to a pack of pagan people. The Maw must exist or the ripple effect harms a faction before it is time. TDS is a world without the god-like nature guardians, and only the worshipers to maintain what they can. The portals are gone.

The Pagans can still have a heaven somewhere. Some dream-like earthy plane not of this world. Who knows, the Maw could be like Dante's Inferno with several layers and dimensions to it. Maybe when the Trickster's Maw was collapsing, the pagans sealed off their shallower realms to avoid being sucked into the cataclysm along with it. We already know the Trickster's minions were being transported from some other unseen domain of the Maw, so perhaps when Garrett shut down that portal, he put a stop to the influx of new Trickster minions on the one hand, but sealed off that realm from the Maw's destruction as well.

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Come on, the game fiction was written by MIT grads, who had read the books and watched the movies I listed above. Those stories aren't superficial, and even the fluff has it's purpose.

No one is infallible, even Thief's developers. Anyhow, my point has never been that these things have no purpose - just that their purpose isn't necessarily crucial. I know, I know, it sounds like blasphemy to suggest that there are elements in Thief that aren't necessary, but I'm not looking at all this from just a Thief fan's perspective - I'm observing it from an outsider's point of view as well. I'm not writing this screenplay only for Thief fans.

The Magpie on 18/12/2008 at 21:33

You demonstrate to us that the mechanical eye doesn't need to be there.

And yet it was there.

It's been demonstrated to you how all of your climax changes don't need to be implemented.

And yet you defend them.

For the record, I think you do deserve major kudos for writing this in the first place. And for asking our opinion. Thanks for that.

--
L.
"A wizard did it!"

jtr7 on 18/12/2008 at 22:07

Agreed, L. This has been unprecedented in my experience, and I was glad to see him demonstrate so much patience. To have what sounds like a complete and filmable script is worthy of applause, The Shroud.:)

Beleg Cúthalion on 18/12/2008 at 22:36

Let me be the advocatus diaboli once more: The guy who wrote the last screenplay sounded quite reasonable in his thinking about movies, too, but after we started criticising his work he turned quite uncooperative ...to express it factually. :p

I think Garrett's mechanical eye still represents his constant vulnerability in this dangerous environment. It's fantasy no matter what you do with it (left aside leaving it out for the rest of the trilogy) and I think not emphasizing it's unnatural properties is enough to keep everyone from wondering). Just my thoughts about the eye thing.

kamyk on 18/12/2008 at 23:25

Quote Posted by jtr7

It goes beyond that. There are too many changes made to the final part I just can't get behind, or find a canon-respectable excuse for. One story, three parts.

Ya lost me. But then, I'm only one voice, here, representing only myself. My work is done. :)

More than one voice :)

Mechanical eye - essential.

Foreshadowing. Karras is the one who gave it to him. A foreshadowing of the mechanical advances of the Metal Age. Simple to explain the "hammerite" upstart crafting it. Much more so than a "magical" welding of his real eye back into his socket. Shows that Garret pays a price of sorts, that everything ISN'T entirely a nice neat happily ever after package. Leave the fairy tales to Disney. Part of Garret's character development in the following storyline. Wonderful opportunity to show the "dawning of the metal age", pehaps a prototype bot in the background as well, as Garret is given his mechanical eye. Leaves a nice tie in to following story while still providing a neat tie-up package in case there isn't one. CANON. The eye does NOT nicely give him back crap. The eye is selfish, greedy, self-serving, sarcastic, and self-preserving. If by some miraculous chance, an opportunity presents itself for the following games to make it to screen, how will you explain the ooc behavior of the eye then? Show Garret patting down his pockets looking for it as he is being "installed" with the mechanical one. Perhaps a drifting one-liner:"I'll be SEEing you, little man".

Two examples:

Lord of the rings. Smash success. Followed the story with very few major canonical changes. I admit there were SOME, but nothing that involved significant character alterations or major alterations to pre-existing story elements. Most changes were additions, and exclusions, rather than alterations.

Mortal Kombat. Smash success? Hardly. Major storyline alterations. Smashing two games storylines into one movie. Character alterations. Alienation of die-hard fans? Check. Indifference of new-to the storyline audience? Check.

Don't try to make Thief BETTER. It's got a fairly large fan base that has survived 10 years, and is still going strong. I think that says something about the original storyline AS IS to begin with.

Cannot swallow 5, 6 or 7.

Further points. Star Wars movies:Luke loses an arm, gets back a mechanical one. Darth Vader lost in space in an out of control Tie-fighter. No ultra tidy wrap ups here. Major commercial sucess without. Still a very satisfying sense of completion.

Big Trouble in little China:Neat wrap up at the end? Nope. Cult classic.

Saw 1:Major point of movie is the surprise LACK of a tidy ending. Huge success spawning what is it? 4 sequels now?

Flash Gordon:End credits, wind blowing on a dusty floor around Ming's ring. Hand reaches down and picks it up. Ming's laughter and trademark "ring noise".

Sometimes people LIKE loose ends to ponder, and let's face it, a movie about Thief isn't going to be selling to the bubble-gum happily-ever-after disney crowd as it's main audience in the first place (ie. the demographic that is used to, and needs that level of closure in a movie).

Edit:Sorry if this sounded harsh. I'm a huge video game fan, and I've seen game after game turned into movies that didn't please much of anyone because someone in the process decided to "improve" what didn't need it in the first place (I could list title after title proving this). The games are popular to begin with for a reason, but somehow most of the time the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" gets ignored, usually with disasterous results. I can't name one movie based on a video game in which it was "improved" that was a smash success both short and long term - except perhaps Tomb Raider, and Resident Evil 1, and those both told NEW stories based on the video games, not "improved" the originals. Yet again, and again the same old formula is tried by hollywood.

A) Take successful franchise that has made it on it's own story. B) "Improve" said story. C) Hit the box offices to amazing first few day figures. D) Flop badly or do mediocre at best.

I would think sooner or later someone would realize that this formula doesn't work. Just once I'd like to see someone be completely true to the story and spirit of a game with no "improvements".

The Shroud on 19/12/2008 at 22:41

Quote Posted by The Magpie

You demonstrate to us that the mechanical eye doesn't need to be there.

And yet it was there.

Yes, it was. Don't think I enjoyed removing it. I'm as sensitive about the canon as any other fan. I have had long, heated arguments with a screenwriting consultant defending all the things in the script that have been preserved from TDP. I took out the mechanical eye with a significant degree of reluctance, despite my belief that it doesn't belong in Thief's setting.

I'd like to see some more arguments for how the mechanical eye makes sense, rather than just why it makes sense. ("Mechanical" is a misnomer, since it's really cybernetic in its function.) With magic, you don't have this problem. There is no such thing as "too advanced" or "too sophisticated" when it comes to magic because if magic is shown to be present in the first place, anything magical is presumed to be just as feasible as any other thing that's magical.

With technology, though, it gets more complicated. We have a frame of reference for technology. If this movie was being shown to a primitive audience with no understanding of electricity or even steam power, much less things like robotics and cybernetics, they'd probably just view the mechanical eye as magical like every other technology they didn't comprehend. But modern day audiences aren't going to see it that way. They (minus hardcore Thief fans) are going to criticize and scoff at the inclusion of cybertech in Thief. They're not going to approach it from the standpoint of, "well it was in the game so it belongs in the movie". They're going to see everything fresh, with no preexisting acceptance of anything that's in the movie - so the movie will have to justify everything to those that won't take it as granted that these things belong there.

I would ask each of you to try stepping outside your biases toward all that is Thief canon, and look at this the way someone who has never heard of Thief before would perceive it. Would they be as accepting of cybertech in Thief's setting as you are? Think about it objectively please.

I have heard the argument before that lots of things in Thief are silly or far-fetched in the first place so audiences won't take the movie seriously anyway, and therefore one more far-fetched addition won't really change things. I disagree with this premise. I think the majority of Thief's setting and story can make sense and that many elements which are casually dismissed as fiction or fantasy are actually not all that implausible - and therefore, Thief can be taken seriously by audiences. And that's what I'm after. That's why I took the time to figure out how things like water arrows, fire arrows, rope arrows, flash bombs, etc., could really work within the limits of Thief's technology and resources. I don't want viewers to laugh it all off as "well it's just fantasy after all so don't bother analyzing it". I want them to be able to respect the story as much as we do. And I think that can be achieved.

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It's been demonstrated to you how all of your climax changes don't need to be implemented.

And yet you defend them.

It's true that Viktoria doesn't necessarily have to confront Garrett or vice versa for the movie to end. I would argue that it should happen, but I wouldn't claim it would totally break the climax if it didn't. As for the Maw's destruction, I believe I already agreed that the entire Maw doesn't necessarily have to be destroyed, only the Trickster's portion of it - as was suggested to me previously. I'd like to discuss these issues later though. For now I'd prefer to focus on the subject of the mechanical eye if that's alright with everyone.

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For the record, I think you do deserve major kudos for writing this in the first place. And for asking our opinion. Thanks for that.

--
L.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Quote Posted by jtr7

Thanks, jtr7. I'm glad we can have this discussion without being at each other's throats. ;) Anyhow, my mind is open. I'm not discussing all this just to read my own words. I'd like to be convinced how the mechanical eye could make sense, given the rest of the technology we see exhibited in TDP. So far I'm not convinced, but I'm still all ears. I'm also curious to see if anyone else agrees with my point of view on this. So far I've seen plenty of opposition, but no devil's advocates. Is the Thief fan base really that unanimous?

jtr7 on 20/12/2008 at 21:03

Karras and his heretical works, having discovered Precursor technology, is the explanation. The technology is behind the scenes, until we get more than a glimpse of it in the final cutscene. Behold, the future! It's a different universe. It's not Earth as any of us know it. Clockwork spy cameras, clockwork picture frames, watchers, scouting orbs...all established in TMA. LGS crammed TMA full of it, so yes, it's quite possible in that universe. Not ours, no. Not only is it essential to the story, the Mech-Eye's a fan-favorite.

And it's not canon, but it's insightful to know that the devs toyed with the idea that Karras was already experimenting on people and apparently behind the other Hammerites' backs even before Garrett shows the Thieves Guild who the Master is. (Sigh) Poor Gibson...whatever happened to him.:(

Anyway, the point being, Karras had a head start, and was able to give Garrett his prototype eye. Interfacing clockwork bronze works with the brain is the earliest thing Karras perfected, as far as we can tell. Considering the level of technology present in the Old Quarter, fifty years prior to TDP, and the removal of most of the Mechanist advances in TDS, shows a lot of technology is feasible, but the Hammerites are extremely conservative and hardly progressive. It would hardly surprise me that Karras left the Order, for a similar reason that Garrett left the Keeper Order. Karras exploded with inspiration, and aggressive progression, cutting through the repression, and invented with little inhibition. The fact that the Mech-Eye was so lovingly shown off in the final cutscene, with the welder reflected in the artificial lens, shows how important it was to LGS's vision, and implies that the tech existed long enough prior for it to have been made and end up in Garrett's socket.

Okay, Karras obviously didn't like the conservatism of the Hammerites. He wanted to bust out. He saw how vulnerable the conservatism left the Order, and was probably well-justified in his anger when the Trickster was able to rise up and attack them. If the Order hadn't forbidden certain technological advancements, against boiler and gear as a blasphemous "improvement" over the holy HAMMER, then the Trickster may never have been a real threat again. If they didn't just go out and exterminate the Pagans, and wipe them off the planet, they would never again pose any problem. Why tolerate them at all? Plus, he has some sort of connection to Dorcas Goodfellow, Ambassador to Blackbrook, and importer of magical constructs (TDP), whom was invited to Angelwatch to receive the gift of a deadly Masked Servant (TMA).

The early concept for why Garrett left the Keepers was linked above. He saw they had power, and that they withheld from using it directly, instead of indirectly. Why hide and shift weights to keep the balance when they had power to run The City? Garrett was disgusted, refused the graduation ceremony, likely didn't have the stomach to just observe the The City citizens and leaders, and left to go do what brought him more joy and adventure than anything else: Thieving. He wanted to bust out. He gets to observe like a Keeper, be a voyeur into The City's inner workings, but he gets to have fun, too, and doesn't have to record any of it if he doesn't want to.

Treat nothing as special or incidental, unless the characters express such an opinion.

The Shroud on 20/12/2008 at 23:44

Quote Posted by jtr7

Karras and his heretical works, having discovered Precursor technology, is the explanation.

What does Precursor technology have to do with cybertech? There is absolutely no indication in the Lost City that the Precursors had developed that kind of science. Sure they had magical crystal lights that might or might not have been technological but look at everything else. They were advanced for their time, like the Egyptians, but we're talking about a marble-sized contraption that can translate images into neuro-signals, feed them into the optic nerve of the brain - wirelessly, reposition itself gyroscopically and zoom in and out via reception of brainwaves. You're telling me you don't think that's a little far-fetched for a society that still believes volcanic lava showers are the gods raining fire down from the heavens?

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The technology is behind the scenes, until we get more than a glimpse of it in the final cutscene. Behold, the future! It's a different universe. It's not Earth as any of us know it. Clockwork spy cameras, clockwork picture frames, watchers, scouting orbs...all established in TMA. LGS crammed TMA full of it, so yes, it's quite possible in that universe.

That's part of the problem. All this stuff was introduced in TMA. In TDP there's no sign of it at all except for the mechanical eye at the very end. Thief's society doesn't advance, it leaps right into the space age. Leaving aside that some mad scientist's vision of journeying to the moon involves an explosion and a wooden box.

I don't have a problem believing Karras is way ahead of his time. That happens from time to time - Tesla, Einstein, etc. But come on. It takes more than one inspired genius with a vision to jump from Victorian-level tech to cybernetics. I can see a brilliant mind inventing cameras and robots - maybe. But there's a limit to what a rational person can swallow. Cyber eyes is going too far, too fast, with too little explanation. It's practically just thrown in there at the last minute ("How about a cyber eye?" "Sure, why not, it's fantasy. We can get away with anything.").

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Not only is it essential to the story, the Mech-Eye's a fan-favorite.

I have a feeling that the main reason the mechanical eye is being defended is because it was there. Not because it actually made sense in Thief's environment from an objective perspective. Let's face it. We all love Thief. The series is like our bible. We worship everything about it. The developers can dream up whatever they want and we'll accept it, because it's Thief, and Thief is equatable to perfection. To suggest errors is akin to blasphemy. We avoid seeing faults in it because we're in love with it. Can we not think critically even about something we've grown so attached to?

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Anyway, the point being, Karras had a head start, and was able to give Garrett his prototype eye. Interfacing clockwork bronze works with the brain is the earliest thing Karras perfected, as far as we can tell. Considering the level of technology present in the Old Quarter, fifty years prior to TDP, and the removal of most of the Mechanist advances in TDS, shows a lot of technology is feasible, but the Hammerites are extremely conservative and hardly progressive.

An explosive device powerful enough to blow open a cloister gate is hardly comparable to the advancements in multiple sciences needed to achieve a functional cybernetic eye.

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It would hardly surprise me that Karras left the Order, for a similar reason that Garrett left the Keeper Order. Karras exploded with inspiration, and aggressive progression, cutting through the repression, and invented with little inhibition.

That's all well and fine. But this kind of thing requires tons of research, which means funding, manpower, resources, support and demand on a major scale. This is like Tesla developing clones under the nose of the Roman Catholic Church. Karras is starting almost from scratch, with no major backing, no trained workers, no reference studies of any kind, and coming up with something we haven't achieved yet, nor will likely achieve within our foreseeable lifetimes - and that's if this cyber-eye were his life's work, his single passion to which he's devoted all his energies from the very beginning.

But that's not the case. Karras is a busy man, inventing cameras and robots when he's not occupied rewriting ancient scriptures or giving sermons and administering the faithful to make a living. There's a reason this never happened in our own history and it's not because we never had our share of brilliant minds.

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The fact that the Mech-Eye was so lovingly shown off in the final cutscene, with the welder reflected in the artificial lens, shows how important it was to LGS's vision, and implies that the tech existed long enough prior for it to have been made and end up in Garrett's socket.

What you're saying, in effect, is that simply by it being there, it justifes itself; 'it's there, therefore it must be possible'. That's not enough justification. There are far, far too many factors contradicting the possibility of something like this being invented. There's no evidence to suggest Thief's society is capable of this. There's no evidence to suggest the Precursors achieved it. Guards and law-enforcement still use swords, bows and arrows. Gas-lighting is considered a luxury. Nobles like Bafford still get around on horse-drawn coaches for crying out loud. A cyber-eye in this setting doesn't make sense.

kamyk on 21/12/2008 at 00:30

Quote Posted by The Shroud

A cyber-eye in this setting doesn't make sense.

Neither do walking, talking bots that have sight/sensing of some kind or other, and the ai to "think" independantly enough to seek out intruders rather than just blast anything that moves, going by this perspective. Nor re-animated corpses integrated into metal shells. It wasn't clockworks and steam engines alone that made all the bots in metal age work - following this line of reasoning.

You will have to write off the entire metal age from the perspective you are following.

It also seems like you are assuming that Karras did all of the things he did under the Hammerites noses in some backyard workshop. The games make it pretty plain that he had almost full support of the church before he began to tread heretical ground, and by that time he had amassed enough hammerites, and other people to his cause to make the mechanists unapproachable.