City of Heroes/WMG

The Menders are clones created by Ouroborous itself.
There is absolutely no reason why villains like Nemesis and Dr. Aeon would work to benefit the time stream, but they've both mucked it up to an extent. So what if some sort of cosmic force, represented by Ouroborous as a whole, is fighting back? And what if this force has taken some kind of genetic imprint of the villains who have messed up time? Ouroborous has created the perfect warriors to fight those villains: themselves.

The PsychoChronoMetron is responsible for respawning bad guys.
One Story Arc in Faultline deals with the PsychoChronoMetron, a device which people with psychic powers can use to change history. At the end of the arc, a budding psychic uses it to prevent itself or any copy of it from ever working again. However, as with all CoH missions, the arc is still there for your next character. It's possible that the PCM is built in such a way that it protects its own existence; therefore, whenever it would be destroyed, it does a limited reset of history so that it still exists. This effect, in turn, could have splinter effects that cause all kinds of heroic missions to come undone, leading to the "zero sum game" effect where bad guys are back on the streets five minutes after they've been arrested.
 * The PCM could also explain why Rage has always only just been discovered when your character is level 16, and why Countess Crey is just outted as being corrupt beyond belief when you're level 40.
 * Or perhaps the whole game uses the Literary Agent Hypothesis. By playing the game, you are reliving various portions of Paragon's history. Obviously, it wasn't you who discovered the Clockwork King's powers or cleared Faultline's name, but by playing those arcs, you are reliving the adventures of the heroes who did.

== Nemesis is "The Center", built the 5th Column from the ground up, and arranged every event in Paragon City's history to create an army of superhumans powerful enough to stop Nemesis's one true foe, Rularuu. == Well, he certainly seems to be behind everything else.
 * It would be easy to arrange, but we DO see the Center and Nemesis at the same time during Viridian's story arc.
 * Nemesis was in that arc an robotic duplicate, so it would be possible.

Mender Silos really is Lord Nemesis, as is implied.
Obviously, "Mender Silos" is an anagram of "Lord Nemesis". The twist is that, so far, he's actually told the truth to you and his followers. His mission actually is good. However, the Ouroboros Letters are written by a version of Nemesis from the Past, determined to stop or mold his future-self's work to benefit him. Silos doesn't seem to mind and is fully aware of it. This may be because the Cataclysm is his past-self's doing, or simply because he remembers what he did before and has taken steps to counteract it.
 * Alternatively, the letters are written by Mender Silos himself to make sure the player never completely trusts him or his followers. To what end is, naturally, unknown.
 * Silos also looks a lot like Doctor Aeon/Professor Echo, who also does time travel.
 * No, that would be Mender Lazarus.
 * Confirmed True as of Issue 19! Currently in open beta, anyone can verify!
 * I Knew It! on a fantastic level. Almost makes you wonder if the devs read this page and went Sure Why Not!

Lord Nemesis is an Incarnate of the mythological Nemesis, goddess of retribution.
In City of Heroes, Incarnates are humans who have drunk from the Fountain of Zeus and have the powers of the gods themselves. Both Statesman and Lord Recluse got their powers this way; Statesman is an Incarnate of Zeus, and Recluse of Tartarus. Nemesis seems to be immortal, a condition often conferred by the fountain, and it would fit the godly theme. The question is, who is he bringing retribution upon?
 * Alternately, Nemesis is the mythological Nemesis. It's been revealed that the same event -- the opening of Pandora's Box -- which lead to the modern age of heroes also brought the classical Greek gods into existence. We know at least one group of them survived into the present day, the Furies, so it's not impossible; the origin of the Prussian Prince of Automatons could be yet another complex scheme to draw people away from the truth. The problem here is, first, the whole goddess thing, and second, why take action when he/she did?

Imperious is Zeus.
Imperious looks, acts, and has powers similar to Statesman. As mentioned above, Statesman's powers come from being an Incarnate of Zeus; thus, it makes sense that Imperious would also be an Incarnate of Zeus. But Cimerora seems to exist in the era of the Roman Empire; the last time before that that Pandora's Box was opened was ancient Greece, and one would assume that the Incarnate of Zeus during that era was... well, Zeus. Therefore, Imperious is Zeus himself, having lived for centuries, eventually settling down as the ruler of a small Mediterranean city-state.

Vanessa DeVore is Nyx.
The porcelain masked Carnival of Shadows are just that: Shadows, given a more human form to blend in to society. Portal technology and the increase in number of Aspects of the Pillar have caused the Dark Hour to expand to all hours of the day. All player pets are Personas.
 * So that makes M Ms the Main Protagonists as they get to have multiple pets of different abilities? And suddenly, teaming to form social links certainly becomes much more important.

The Moraine was sunk by Adamastor
The entire backstory of Mayor Spanky hints at this when you put the clues together. There's a link between him, the Moraine, and Dark Astoria, and that he may well have sold his soul for the success of Paragon City, possibly in a deal with the Banished Pantheon. Adamastor is said to have attacked ships in African waters before somehow arriving at Paragon City. And the Moraine was notable in that it was the only ship that didn't get personally christened by the Mayor himself.

Nemesis isn't a Timelord... yet.
His ultimate goal is to acquire enough technology to pass for a Timelord. Part of his plan involves escalating the Rikti-human war until one side gets twisted into his own personal Dalek-like race.
 * By the point of Ouroboros, he's succeeded.

The City and The Rogue Isles are a giant holo-prison to contain supers.
The real world governments have engineered the entire Paragon City complex in an effort to limit the otherwise unbalancing impact that walking nuclear weapons, mind controlling mutants and nearly invincible walking tanks would have. All the citizens and villains in the city (for the Rogue Isles add heroes to the list) are all cleverly manifested illusions. Thus explaining why, no matter how many times you beat them, named enemies are just waiting for you the next time around and why any random citizen can safely jump off a 4+ story building without harm but are unable to stand up to the lowliest of purse snatchers. Also why this single city has such a concentration of supers, the war walls, the level specific zones and why you never, ever get to attack France.
 * This just makes the Architect even more meta...
 * I'll do you one better: They're actually a giant holo-training sim. A training sim designed to teach heroes how to spot the inconsistencies in Lotus Eater Machine type traps and break free. Architect and Ouroborus are just cracks or tools in the system to help the heroes learn.

The Vanguard's colors are intentionally neutral.
There is an obvious color preference difference between heroes and villains, with villains preferring red and black & heroes preferring blue and white (and hence the names, Redside and Blueside). So, when The Vanguard, a large organization attempting to recruit both heroes and villains, picks a two-color scheme, which two do they pick? Purple and gray. The two colors that represent a "halfway point" chromatically between both sides. Either The Vanguard picked these colors in hopes that it would subconsciously help to reduce internal conflict between heroes and villains, or the Developers chose them for the symbolic meaning.
 * The latter is confirmed by Word of God, actually.

Every WMG here is just a Nemesis Plot
And there's nothing you can do about it

There is no "real" Nemesis any more
In Web of Arachnos, we get a chance to see Brass Monday, the first attempt by the arch villain Nemesis to openly attempt to take control of Paragon City, using an immense army of giant robots. Statesman eventually traces their source back to the original factory, and hears a voice berating an older man about failing to take into consideration the fact that the bipedal robots would be able to be toppled due to bipedal construction concentrating the center of mass too high at that size. He then sees an old man being strangled by what appears to be a machine. Fast forward a few years and Nemesis is infamous for his battlesuits that are so advanced they can fake being Nemesis himself. However, whenever you defeat the real Nemesis, it's always a duplicate, and he comes back, even when assumed "dead". Even when forensic evidence suggests that the artificial brain he implanted himself in to resist the degradation of aging was fried in the aftermath of his defeat. But you see "degraded Nemesis" duplicates in that mission, with damaged brains, suggesting they're improper copies....but why make copies of yourself using the same technology you're using to save yourself? Possibly, the only difference between Nemesis and the Fake Nemesis robots is that that Fake Nemesis believes itself to be real, and it's a Doombot scenario: they can all be Nemesis, because the real one's long gone and can't override them. Because the original Fake Nemesis strangled the flesh and blood one decades ago.
 * Hundreds of robotic brains would definitely help to explain why he can make so many goddamn plans.

Mender Tesseract is Arakhn
So far, we know that Mender Silos is Nemesis, it's implied that Mender Lazarus is Doctor Aeon, and Twilight's Son is unintroduced, being from the future. Mender Tesseract is the biggest enigma here; we only know that the Letter Writer thinks of her as the most honest, however sees her as a 'nightmare given form', and that 'her kind was bred to rule, to conquer, to consume'. There are only four females in the entirety of villain groups that are even improtant enough to consider: Vanessa De Vore of the Carnival of Shadows, Countess Crey, Arakhn of the Council, and Ghost Widow. The 'bred' line alone rules out Crey and De Vore. Leaving only the two assassins. Both of them could theoretically be considered a 'nightmare given form', and a kind 'bred to rule, conquer and consume' could apply to Ghost Widow's Arachnos training. But this is unlikely, given not only the fact that she is dead, but that Arakhn is a Nictus, who basically have that as their job description.
 * Although supposedly Twilight's Son sold out his species... supposedly.

Ouroboros is an Arachnos organization.
I've always found it weird that Nemesis would pick such an obvious pseudonym, considering how intelligent he (supposedly) is. It just doesn't seem to be his style. There's only one other Big Bad that has access to time travel - Lord Recluse. And, as has been previously discussed, Mender Lazarus looks like Doctor Aeon, who's already part of Arachnos.

And, if we take into account the previous WMG, it seems that Arakhn is an Arachnos mole for the Council. After all, what's the first mission in Ouroboros? Setting up the 5th Column so that the Council takes over. Who, aside from The Centre, was created whole-cloth for the Council? Yes, Arakhn. And it's not like there aren't ALREADY Arachnos moles in the Council; But what good would a low ranking member like Ernesto Hess do for Arachnos? Wouldn't someone with a higher ranking work better?

The only member of Ouroboros that doesn't have an Arachnos counterpart (for want of a better word) is Twilight's Son. All signs point to him being Sunstorm, or rather, the Kheldian that became Sunstorm - Perihelion. As it says in Sunstorm's bio: "What Perihelion didn't realize was that Sgt. Carter wasn't a soldier like it expected, but an upstanding member of the Paragon Police Department. As a result, Sunstorm is not as martial and merciless as Perihelion, having been tempered by Carter's high ideals."

And as the mysterious letter writer says that he sold out his species, it seems that Perihelion did it if he's as "martial and merciless" as the bio says. Why? Well, the species that uses Kheldians for fuel is implied to be the Shivans, and what place is overrun by Shivans? Only Bloody Bay, part of Lord Recluse's domain. If Perihelion was influenced into saving his species by selling them out, letting Lord Recluse gain back Bloody Bay, it seems like the kind of guy/sguid/lobster that would do that.

Speaking of the letter writer, I think it's Nemesis, simply because Recluse is "using" his name to deflect the suspicion onto Nemesis. And I'm certain I read at some point that Recluse and Nemesis hold a grudge between them.

So, in short, Silos is Recluse, Nemesis is writing the letters to prove that it's not him, Mender Tesseract is Arakhn, who's an Arachnos mole and Twilight's son is Sunstorm. All of it is to gain back Bloody Bay.


 * Confirmed false as of issue 19. Mender Silos is a future version of Nemesis. When Mender Ramiel is asked directly after completing the Incarnate Introductory Arc, he confirms that "[Lord Nemesis] is a name that Silos has gone by in the past but..."

The Greek Muses are the sources of most of the power origins.
The setting is so seeped in Classical Mythology, this only makes sense. In the "Origin of Power" story arc, you learn from Positron that when he invents something truly marvelous, he feels connected to something. This something is the creation of the Greek Muses.
 * Well, one of their names can be literally translated as "origin" (Arche).
 * Unfortunately, only two other muses really fit, those being Melete (Practice/Natural Origin) and Mneme (Memory/Science). Three of them were named for chords of the lyre and the rest are more or less expies of the original three.
 * Possibly Jossed. If I recall right Pandora's Box was just the name it was dubbed by, but it was actually significantly older and had been opened before back around the days of Gilgamesh. My personal speculation is that the box actually does not grant power but removes a Power Limiter in people's brains that also acts as a Weirdness Censor things like the current Co T's activities (which predate the opening of the box). After all, calling it Pandora's box is a clearly a bad case of Sadly Mythtaken. (Where in the original myth did Pandora's box grant SUPER POWERS?)
 * Yet it is perfectly possible that the name is actually accurate: Supervillains have done a massive heap of damage to the world, and the superhero/supervillain wars are truly destructive, no matter the original intentions of the supers involved. That, and they say power ultimately corrupts. Opening the box truly could have been the opening to the greatest evils.
 * I still say its Sadly Mythaken, just because the Circle of Thorns (even its more modern incarnation) existed before the opening of the Box, and there still would have been people with Mu lineage running around, who would end up kidnapped and possessed. The mysteries would simply end up unsolved, or worse, unacknowledged. The Damage might not be as large scale, but there would be NOTHING to seriously stand between the meta-humans that existed prior (Nemesis included) to the opening the box and their goals.

The Council are slaves to pop culture.
Think about it. Genetically engineering their own artificial vampires and werewolves? Obviously cashing in on the latest trends. All they need now is an army of genetically engineered androgynous Canadian pop stars.
 * The Council/5th Column were engineering vampires and werewolves before vampires and werewolves were cool!

Lord Recluse is a Darwinist in the truest sense of the word
When you look at Arachnos and the Rogue Islands, you're basically allowed to get away with just about anything, up to and including attacking Arachnos or a Patron, so long as you prove strong enough to to do. He doesn't care if your strength involved cloak, dagger, and poisons, or even if you put an army between yourself and your foes, because just like in nature, adaptations to either harmonize or dominate ones environment comes in all forms and evolution is about disregarding (or using to your advantage) the established laws.

Lady Grey is an Incarnate
Possibly having taken the slower path to power compared to Statesman and others. Her knowledge about Incarnates despite seeming to have little interaction with them (and mind you, this is compared to Sister Psyche and Dark Watcher, both of whom had a long history working with Statesman and had means to be able to learn this kind of stuff, even outside of him) beyond, maybe, studying the Honoree.

Meta: Jack Emmert is lead developer again
It seems weird that, suddenly, alternate incarnations of Statesman are the biggest threat to the multiverse and that alternate universe marcus coles are suddenly, stupidly badass. The only explanation is that Positron and Warwitch quietly hired Jack Emmert back into Paragon Studios.
 * This troper has a friend who playtests at Cryptic and still sees Emmert in meetings and in the halls. Apparently he's a bit of a jerk in person too.
 * There is another explanation; each current version of Marcus Cole is presented as a Take That to Jack Emmert. Statesman is a stubborn jerk, Emperor Cole is an unabashed tyrant (it's even his codename!), Reichsman is a freaking Nazi...oh, and you get to beat up on every single one.

Gilgamesh was the original Incarnate
I see it this way: Gilgamesh became an Incarnate, despite already being powerful, and that's how he became two-thirds god, one third man. I would also say that in the end, the Well of Furies withdrew enough of its support to keep him from being immortal because Gilgamesh was too Badass to control. In City of's lore, it's possible that Enkidu was made from the Well as a second attempt to control him, and it didn't quite work.
 * Collory to the above; Gil sealed Pandora's box after the death of Enkidu.

Mender Silos is actually a Dalek Agent, and Ouroboros is a sinister plot to destroy the Doctor.
Mender Silos (AKA Lord Nemesis), is known for having a hand in everything. Couple that with the mysterious letters, and the constant reference to a "Coming Storm", which was a Dalek Nickname for the Doctor, and you have this theory.

The Present Bobcat is not the same Bobcat from before issue 18
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Bobcat Just compare the two vastly different appearances, then consider the fact that their personalities are nothing alike, and her 'boyfriend' is a brilliant Geneticist scientist, and he's apparently been in the field of clones and such for some time now. What's to say Neuron didn't get tired of a wild cat and designed to make a new one who's a more traditional Catgirl. The real question is, where's the original?

Rularuu is an Incarnate
When you talk to Prometheus in Ouroboros and you ask about what's happening in Praetoria, he tells that "the Well believes it requires a Champion." Why? Does the Well think that the Coming Storm can threaten it?

When you travel to the  a number of Incarnates are present; Statesman, Lord Recluse, Imperious, Reichsman, Honoree. There are also tentacles in the distance that imply Hamidon's presence, and it seems very likely that Hamidon is an Incarnate. All of these are Shadow Shard style reflections, implying Rularuu's presence. At the top of the citadel, in the central position, is an Aspect of Rularuu.

I believe that Rularuu consumes dimensions in order to absorb the Incarnate power contained in those dimensions, in the hopes of building up enough Incarnate power to challenge the Well, either to end its influence over the universe or to take its place. At the end of the Primal-Praetorian war, something is going to happen leading to Rularuu's release. Rularuu will consume Hamidon, creating a being of unfathomable cosmic power that the new Incarnates of Earth will have to defeat to prevent the entire universe from being devoured.


 * I'm pretty sure those tentacles are Hydra tentacles (... er, I think that's what the thing was called, it's been forever since I did the Abandoned Sewer Trial- the Rikti's Hydra-Man superweapon thing)- Hami hasn't shown a lot of inclination to sprout tentacles thus far. Which raises an interesting question- is the Hydra an Incarnate?
 * While the normal Hamidon has no tentacles, it's almost certain that its counterpart in Praetoria does.

The Well of the Furies' instigated the first Rikti War to try and regain its hold on that dimension.
The near-death of magic on the Rikti Homeworld weakened, or possibly even broke, the Well's ability to influence that dimension (thus the total lack of Rikti supers in the wars, even when their help would have been desperately needed). This, combined with the fact that the Rikti could control Incarnates without using the Well's power made them very dangerous to it. So it took steps to weaken the Rikti and regain a foothold in that dimension.

The war not only reduced the Rikti in number, culled their most aggressive members, and sowed dissension in the previously-unified Group Mind, it also introduced Primal Earth DNA, and at least a few Well-empowered supers, into their population via the Lost.


 * If this is true, then  must be an Incarnate, since

The Well of Furies is actually The Root of the World
Either that or it's The Holy Grail

Nemesis sabotaged nuclear research.
Understanding the game-changing potential of nuclear weapons, particularly in relation to his plan to become Emperor of the Americas in the aftermath of the war, he subtly delayed progress in the field so that it would only be complete when he wanted it to be. The two most notable historical variations between Primal Earth and Praetorian Earth are that on the latter, Nemesis did not rise to power, and nuclear weapons were used earlier, creating a more powerful version of the Hamidon. It seems probable that these events may have a causal link, which means that even Praetoria is a Nemesis plot.

Back Alley Brawler will NOT die in the upcoming Signature Arcs
For those who may not know, the Devs have been talking about an upcoming series of signature story arcs to be released over a seven month period culminating to the death of a member of the Freedom Phalanx. Many suspect this to be Back Alley Brawler because The Black Dude Dies First. EXCEPT the devs have said Back Alley Brawler is NOT officially part of the Freedom Phalanx, so even the promotional with an image of his gloves is just a Red Herring. But he may get a reroll since there's now two powersets that fit him much better. (willpower and the upcoming Street Justice) ---

Ruularuu will join in on the "Coming Storm" Slobberknocker.
In at the end of the Dark Astoria storyline, you learn that   tampered with the Knife of Jocas,   Silos's reasoning?